


The Tilt

by acornsandravens



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arranged Marriage, Complete, Everyone Is Alive, F/M, Happily Ever Afters, Knights and Ladies, Stark Family Dynamics, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-13
Updated: 2013-08-27
Packaged: 2017-12-23 08:07:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/923924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acornsandravens/pseuds/acornsandravens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Ser Gendry Waters was a long way from the Vale, and he would find Winterfell no more welcoming than he’d found the Twins during the rebellion if Arya had anything to say about it. And Arya always had entirely too much to say. He might have thought her a lady at the tourney- he must have, to beg her favor and give her his crown of Love and Beauty-but this was the North. Things were different here; he’d see soon enough. Arya Stark was no lady at all."</p><p>Arya/Gendry AU where everyone doesn't die and Starks are happy (?). Minor Meera/Bran and mentions of Robb/Dacey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Reduce Me

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, here's the story. Don't look too deep in the plotholes, you'll fall in. Jon Arryn handles the Robert's Bastards situation differently, and sends Gendry away to become a squire in the Vale. The Starks never go south, everyone is alive, and Arya grows into a terrible lady. Gendry is a Knight who played an important part during the Bolton and Frey rebellion, which is now over and everyone in Westeros can totally party freely now. 
> 
> Ages are more showverse, I've kinda closed up the age gaps. I think of Arya and Meera as about 18, Bran and Jojen 15, Rickon 12. But I totally don't care man, this is fanfiction. Make 'em whatever age doesn't gross you out.
> 
> Oh. And Ned totally ships it.

If Arya hadn’t known its true purpose perhaps she might have enjoyed the tourney. Knowing, however, that she was as much a spectacle as the joust had somewhat put a dampener on the festivities.

Mostly she was irritated with herself for not seeing the trap as it was sprung. When the Frey and Bolton rebellions had finally been put down and the roads were safe again she had looked forward to travelling the North, or at least hoped for some visitors that weren’t quite so boring as the stiff lords and ladies that Winterfell usually hosted. Hope was all she’d had.

And a tourney? Well, she may not have been hung up in the romantic tales of courtly love and chivalrous feats as Sansa had been, but she and Bran and Rickon had always enjoyed watching a well ridden tilt. When they had been children they would sit on the fences and watch the jousting from there, perched high enough to see over the crowd. After the conclusion of the match they’d scramble down and pick up splintered wood from the broken lances and keep them as trophies and Arya had gotten in trouble for poking Sansa’s backside with hers more than once.

She hadn’t expected they’d still be allowed to sit on the fence, of course, but she hadn’t counted on being forced into her finest gown and made to sit in the stands where people could appraise her the whole time. Under such a close watch, it was absolutely inappropriate for her to stand and shout for her favorite riders or, indeed, to show any emotion other than polite boredom or a dramatic swoon if there was any blood to be seen.

The lords and ladies never left her be. She’d had dozens of introductions, thwarted numerous would-be suitors, and poorly feigned interest in more conversations than she could count. She had very quickly understood why so many of the maids in stories locked themselves in towers. At least she could be alone in a tower.

No, this tourney hadn’t been about renewing Northern loyalties- it had been about forging new ones. Through marriage.

Bran and Rickon hadn’t been spared similar attention. They seemed to be enjoying it a sight more than she, the traitors. Even father’s bannerman Howland Reed had made a rare appearance from the marshlands with his own two children, Meera and Jojen, though as the two were regularly fostered at Winterfell seeing them wasn’t so unusual. Meera hadn’t been made to wear a stupid gown, though, and Arya was a bit cross at the lack of solidarity.

Still, there was one thing to be said about the marriage plot- plenty of distractions for her companions. Father had gone to talk to someone or other and Rickon had been drawn away by a buxom brunette that was far too old for him. She knew an opportunity when she saw it.

Arya had shoved her way out of the feast tent in her haste to escape, dodging conversations like they were loosed arrows.

Finally, she broke free of the crowd and found herself standing in the trampled down grass of the festival grounds and blessedly alone. With her skirts hitched to her knees she darted behind brightly colored tents, grateful that they provided cover and hung their sigils outside so she could avoid any likely to house a Stark who might haul her back to her place at the head table.

She hadn’t been overly mindful of the direction she was headed. Partly because she didn’t care as long as it was _away_ and partly because she’d had precious little opportunity to figure out her bearings in her walks between the lists and the feast tents. So she followed the sounds of metal clashing and the smell of horse and hoped it would prove more interesting than the plate of lamb she’d left behind.

When she’d gone by a man passed out face down on the ground with his wine still in his hand and not a drop spilled she knew she’d picked the right direction. Here she wasn’t the only one dodging in and out of tents- a squealing, giggly woman with bare breasts and her very large paramour had nearly taken down a tent in Umber colors in their haste to get back inside.

Arya supposed that most of the knights were at the feast or, like the Umber man, were already whoring or drinking, though their squires and grooms had remained to tend the horses and polish an endless pile of armor. Three years ago she would have stopped to chat with these men, but now that she was a woman grown she’d found she had less patience for friendly conversation with men who only sought to stare down the neck of her gown when she spoke.

Soon enough she found herself standing at the far end of the loop of knight’s tents. She was considering stepping into the brush to see if she couldn’t loosen her stays a bit before the walk back when she realized she wasn’t alone.

At first she thought him a squire, but his squire sat by the fire poking a pan of fried trout with a stick with one hand and polishing a bull’s head helm with the other. And she’d never seen a groom quite so…well. He didn’t _look_ like a groom.

Arya took note of the familiar blue and white colors of his tent and the banner hammered into the ground outside. The Arryn falcon and moon flew there, and she vaguely remembered something her father had said about wanting to be certain to see this particular man ride, as he had wagered a few gold dragons on a bet with someone. This was Ser… _Waters, something Waters_. The Bull, they called him, the knight that had led the reinforcements from the Vale during the rebellion. Father and Robb had spoken of him often.

She had pictured some giant man like Greatjon, what with a name like the Bull. He was certainly tall and broad and muscled- quite, she noted, as he was currently shirtless- but he didn’t look old enough to be some war hero knight tasked with leading anyone’s reinforcements. He was probably only Jon and Robb’s age, she decided. She still had trouble thinking of her brothers as men rather than the boys she had trailed around the training yard.

This one, though, was very undeniably a _man_. Arya surveyed the bulging muscles of his shoulders and chest with an appreciation she usually reserved only for fine steel, the ridges of his abdomen disappearing under a pair of low slung cotton breeches that pulled a bit too snug across his powerful thighs, toned and strong from riding.

 Sansa and Jeyne Poole would have giggled about him for hours, but they were both wed now and if they still giggled about knights she wouldn’t know. _Thank the gods._

Arya watched the way those distracting muscles worked when he swept the brush he held over the coat of his horse, a solid grey stallion that gleamed like a mirror in the dying sunlight. He was talking cheerfully to the horse in a low voice while the animal chewed a mouthful of grass and after a moment he tossed down his brush to knuckle the sweat from his brow.

When he turned to ask his squire when the fish would be ready Arya found herself looking into bright blue eyes, a contrast to the dark untidy hair that fell over his forehead in a black shock.

The two of them seemed caught there for an instant, her openly staring at him and his sentence unfinished, the words dead on his lips. Belatedly, she realized she still had her skirts hiked up and let them fall, but if he had noticed he gave no indication. His eyes remained steadily locked to her own.

She suddenly felt the unfamiliar urge to tug at her gown and make sure it was hanging straight. A flush- was that a flush she felt? - crept to her cheeks and a knot had settled somewhere in the region of her ribcage, tightening in an anxious flutter.

And then he’d made the mistake of speaking, and her irritation overtook whatever that flutter might have been.

“Are you lost, my lady?”

She bristled with outrage at his concerned tone. _Lost_. She didn’t get lost; she wasn’t some highborn lady that had never ventured outside the gardens where she did her needlework. She started to retort, something bold and vulgar that would make her mother weep to hear it come from her daughter’s lips- but then she remembered that this was her Uncle Jon’s man, and it was certain to get back to mother if she did. And she didn’t _really_ want to hear her mother weeping about her use of language.

“No, thank you, I’ve only gone on a walk. To admire the horses, if it pleases you.” she covered, stepping closer to the grey stallion to add credence to her hasty lie.

“Oh, by all means,” he offered, holding his arms out in welcome. “His name is Steel. He’s quite gentle.”

The destrier stood lazily and let her scratch his withers, unconcerned with her so long as his master was nearby.

“He’s an unusual color.” Steel was a flat silvery grey unmarked by dappling like most horses of his color. With his dark mane and tail he looked a bit like a very pretty donkey, but even Arya wouldn’t dare to insult a man’s horse.

“I’m told he has some distant Sand Steed blood, my lady?-” he paused, waiting for her to give her surname.

“Snow. I am Jeyne Snow.”

He dropped into a half bow. “Ser Gendry of the Vale, though you might know me as the Bull. Do you like to ride?”

He flinched awkwardly at his unintentional double entendre and Arya almost laughed in his face. She did both of them a favor and ignored it.

“I ride some. No horses like this, though.”

A metallic clang offered a momentary distraction, and Arya glanced at the helm that his squire had finished polishing and put aside noisily, the curved horns glinting in the setting sun. The rest of his plate was a dark grey color, enameled with a few blue lines and whorls in honor of house Arryn, she imagined. Though plain by many standards Arya found that she quite liked the simplicity.

“Your armor and caparisons are very fine.” she complimented truthfully.

Ser Gendry must have liked that, because he drew himself up a bit taller. “I was an armorer’s apprentice before I began my squiring.”

A blacksmith knight? Well, better than some boring lordling, she supposed. Gendry had leaned over the back of his horse and prepared to launch into his life’s story, but Arya was spared by his squire’s pan of fish, which was apparently getting quite cold while _Ser_ was chatting. The lad seemed quite irritated by the offense.

“In a moment, Hot Pie.” he growled.

She thought he was announcing the menu, but from the answering grunt she surmised that the squire was called Hot Pie.

“Would you care to sup with us? It’s meager fare, I’m afraid, but there’s enough for three.” offered Gendry, though Hot Pie- who was a very round young man-made a distressed noise at the invitation.

“Oh. Well,” Arya desperately wanted to refuse, but the trout smelled delicious, and she hadn’t eaten any of the lamb she’d abandoned at the feast. Her mouth was watering. “If you’re sure.”

Gendry emerged from the tent a moment later and she noted regretfully that he’d found a shirt. He also carried a jug of mead and a cushion to spare her dress, but Arya was already seated on the ground next to the fire with her sleeves rolled up, worrying the bones out of her fish with her fingers. The squire was glaring at her and Gendry was staring in a peculiar fashion-she didn’t care, let him stare and wonder what sort of woman she was. She’d only wanted a bit of that trout. And some mead, too, to wash it down.

“I’m sorry, we haven’t any wine.” Gendry offered, topping off her wooden cup.

“I prefer mead, truthfully.”

Three cups of mead later and Arya was studying the square cut of his jaw far too closely to claim any subtlety. With his dark hair he looked on the verge of sprouting a full beard even fresh shaved. He was ruggedly, unfairly handsome, she had decided, his size and strength an amusing contrast to the way he looked over at her, half shy like a green boy might.

Carnal knowledge had never felt quite so close.

About the time she’d started thinking of words to describe his lips- she’d gotten stuck on sensual- her father had strolled by. Arya shrank into the shadow of the large squire and her father nearly missed her, but she was caught when he recognized the heralds of the tent and called a greeting to Ser Gendry of the Vale and noticed her shirking in the dim light. ‘Jeyne Snow’ had no choice but to come forward.

Her father had stopped looking angry at her years ago. He usually just looked weary.

“Arya? There you are! I’ve got Bran and Rickon scouring the grounds for you.” scolded her father, the lines in his forehead deepening along with his scowl.

Gendry looked between the two of them very rapidly, the moment of comprehension clearly visible. “I’m sorry my lord, I didn’t intend to keep your _daughter_ from your company.”

 _At least he’s heard of me_ thought Arya. She got some small degree of satisfaction from her minor infamy.

“Oh, the fault was mine.” she offered. Both of them were looking at her suspiciously. Gods, what did they want her to say? This was why she didn’t bother with useless formalities.

“I thank you for keeping her safe, Gendry.”

Arya didn’t bother hiding her eye roll. Kept her safe from what? The only menace she’d faced was his squire when she’d eaten a share of his supper. “Good luck tomorrow in the joust. We’ll be watching from the stands at the left of the Manderlys, I’m sure it would please my sons to meet you before your turn. If you have a moment, of course.” Ned continued.

Gendry inclined his head graciously. “I shall be sure to introduce myself, my Lord.”


	2. Seduce Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let's get the swooning and the chivalry going.

They sat as close to the rails as they could. The Reeds had been reined in by their father and sat a few rows back, and Bran was sitting with them. Rickon was casually trying to find reasons to look over his shoulder at the blonde seated behind him so Arya and her father sat as the two Stark sentinels under their heraldry. Though her bloody dress was still too tight she couldn’t help but feel a niggling of pride at representing her house. At least she _thought_ that was pride. There were a lot of emotions swirling around her today.

She saw the horse and his colors but not him, as much as she was trying not to look at all. She was trying so intently _not_ to search for him in the crowd that she didn’t notice when he popped up at the rail in front of her, not yet in his heavy plate and helm.

“My lady, my lord Stark.” He nodded at them in greeting. Arya suppressed a yelp of surprise and fisted the cloth of her skirt in her hands to steady her nerves. 

Her father was beaming and bubbling with well wishes and polite conversation while Arya tried to school her expression into one of total indifference, but that was hard to do with him so close.

“Are you enjoying the festivities, my lady?” Gendry finally asked, and her father whirled on her expectantly.

“Yes.” she granted sullenly, though she could tell the lie had never made it to her expression.

“Ah- well, I hope I don’t disappoint.” he said, looking down at his feet for an instant, and then back at her again in embarrassment, like he’d caught himself in a bad habit. She’d rather he looked at his feet, really, it was easier to pretend disinterest when he didn’t gaze up at her like that. “I was wondering if I might have your favor for the tourney- with your lord father’s permission. It would be my pleasure to fight in your honor.”

“What?” she croaked dumbly. This was not the reaction Gendry had been expecting, and a shadow of doubt clouded his face.

“Your favor?” he asked again, hopefully.

Arya looked down at her lap. Her hair was a bird’s nest and didn’t have a ribbon to spare; she wore no veils, scarves or gloves.

“I—umm.”

“Might you have a handkerchief?” offered her father helpfully.

Arya fished around in her skirts, looking for the slit that concealed her pocket. She found some crumbs, an acorn, and a wadded up plain square of muslin that she must have used to wrap whatever had made the crumbs. She had no explanation for the acorn.

“I—here.” she offered Gendry her pathetic crumpled token, and he took the cloth and held it as tenderly as if she had given him a blown glass bird’s egg. Now _he_ was beaming at her- she felt like she was in Dorne with all the sunny smiles.

He’d knotted her token around his sleeve and said a very heartfelt thank-you. Arya could only scowl. A horn sounded, and he spared her one last look.

“I’m afraid they’re looking for me.” he said with a final bow, ducking back through the crowd and sprinting across the list to Hot Pie, who was holding his breastplate and appeared to be yelling, though they were too far away to hear what he was saying.

Arya caught herself leaning over the rail to watch and had to casually pretend she had been having trouble making out the opposing knight’s sigil, though the colors were clearly visible and Arya had learned the sigils of the Northern houses before she’d learned how to write her own name.

When next he emerged she could still see that telltale flash of white above his gauntlet. He searched her out in the crowd and their eyes met again before he closed the visor on his bull’s head helm. Steel was dancing underneath him eagerly and when his squire armed him the lance in his hand was long and uncomfortably symbolic.

Arya and her father chose the exact same moment to clear their throats awkwardly.

Bran climbed over the bench and flopped down between Arya and her father, not noticing the moment of discomfiture. “I thought he was meant to come meet us?”

Arya glanced at her father. She didn’t like the look on his face, the little half smile. “I’m sure we’ll be seeing him again.”

“Not if he gets unhorsed.” Arya muttered.

He hadn’t been unhorsed. He fumbled a bit on his first pass, but on the second he broke his lance on the Tallheart knight’s shield. The third saw the opposing knight in the dust among a shower of splinters and dented armor.

She didn’t let his undeniable skill bother her. This was only the first set of competitions. The winners from today would be paired tomorrow, and he couldn’t go on winning forever. Her favor wasn’t nearly that lucky.

~

Arya had deliberately chosen to stand in front of a dark green panel that night in the feast tent, in the hopes that the nearness to the color of her gown would allow her to go unnoticed. For the most part it had worked and she was allowed to swallow her wine and make sure Rickon didn’t make off with any of the serving girls before he’d even grown a proper beard. She was starting to think her mother had a point when she complained of Theon’s influence on her sons.

“Enjoying the evening, Jeyne?” asked a voice over her shoulder.

“Celebrating your victory at the lists, ser.” she replied sardonically.

He chuckled, which irritated her more than if he had been offended. “I owe my luck to you, my lady.”

She glanced down, and saw her favor still knotted over the sleeve of his shirt. “I’m not your lady. No matter what you think that little bit of cloth represents.”

Ser Gendry hadn’t argued the point. He hadn’t asked her to dance with him, or to go on a walk in the moonlight. He’d been content to stand near her as they drank their wine and Arya hadn’t minded. He was large enough to scare off any competition, and he was mercifully quiet. Arya was almost sorry that he was going to lose the tourney.

~

Of course he’d win the fucking tourney. She’d waited and watched, feeling sick in the stands with nerves and  admiration crashing over her; through every single list she’d gritted her teeth and prayed for his horse to stumble or for his lance to take his opponent depending on the moment and the way her fickle heart had set at that instant. And one by one every knight had fallen; every man had met his loss at the end of the Bull’s horns.

Every evening he’d find her in front of that green panel in the feast tent and ask her how she’d found the day’s joust. Disappointing had been her usual answer, even if watching him ride that day had her clinging to the railings in terror with fierce, bare hope taking her to her knees. She could hardly tell him _that_.

When it had been decided the last joust would be between Ser Gendry and the largest of the Flint men, a huge wall of towering muscle and bravado, Arya had known she couldn’t bear to watch Gendry get mown down. She knew the Flints well, and there was no way some southron lad had any chance at all. She had meant to tell him so at the feast the night before, but the words had stuck in her throat and she couldn’t bear to do it. He looked so modestly pleased with himself and Arya was flippant and rash but not _cruel._

She hadn’t been able to eat her breakfast that morning, her stomach had been flopping so. When he’d ridden out in his armor for the last time Arya had grabbed Rickon’s hand so hard he’d complained until she shushed him so she could hear the last reading of Gendry’s title. It might as well have been a funeral song.

It was hot and still in the stands and Arya imagined in armor and mail it would have been baking. The Flint had to change horses at the last, and had impossibly found a larger, angrier looking destrier to ride down Ser Gendry with. Again and again they clashed, prolonging her agony. The snorting of horses and the rattle of steel pressed out every other sound; there was nothing but the pass in Arya’s world. And the Bull did not falter, didn’t stop his charge when the lance glanced off the side of his helm-gods, it might have found his neck if it had been a handspan lower- he rode on. The missed blow unbalanced the Flint, and Gendry’s own lance caught him so solidly in the middle of the chest that he was swept out of the saddle with such ease that he might have been a strawman.

It was over. A whirl of… _things_ beat at her chest, her mind, as she watched Gendry pull off his helm and rake his sweaty hair out of his face, the tremulous curl of his lips when he bowed to the stands that held house Manderly.

 _Name one of them. Please_. She begged him mutely.

That would be fair, it was fitting, this was the Manderly’s own tourney and the two daughters were pretty enough.

Lord Manderly himself was giving some little speech about the feats of bravery, the honor bestowed on Ser Gendry. Arya only heard the cheers of the crowd and her heart pounding in her ears. She rose to excuse herself, but her father grabbed her hand and tugged her back to the bench. Not roughly, but he might as well have flung Meera’s net over her head and bound her there in manacles.

She watched in silent horror as Gendry pulled off his gauntlets and took the wreath of white roses. A hush fell over the crowd while they awaited his decision. She wanted to run, wanted to panic when his eyes sought hers.

And with that single look the two of them already knew what it would be.

 _I can’t do this_.

Could you refuse? Oh, if only she had ever listened to a blessed word out of her sister’s mouth she might know what happened in the songs and the stories. No. If you could refuse surely her aunt Lyanna would have when the dragon prince had named her at the tourney at Harrenhal. No wars would be fought over some no-name knight from the Vale giving a wreath to unpolished little Arya Stark, not like then.

So why did it feel like this was the start of a battle?

When he placed the wreath in her lap her hands rose up unbidden to take it, the thorns digging into her fingers when she held it too tight. She ought to have said thank you, but she didn’t thank him, wouldn’t thank him for this- and her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth besides.

She could have _killed_ him. Every eye was on her then, all of White Harbor it felt like. But it was his that were setting her cheeks afire; no one had ever looked at her like that. So naked and admiring and hopeful.

Her arms didn’t feel like they were connected to her body when they raised the wreath and set it on her head, over the drooping braids she’d pinned up that morning. The smell of roses overtook the last of her functioning senses. Gendry’s hand was hot and damp when it took hers and lifted it to his lips. She felt the rough scrape of stubble on her knuckle and a bead of perspiration from his upper lip when he’d pressed a chaste kiss- it felt anything but chaste- to the back of her fingers.

She watched in a daze as he unknotted the scrap of yellowed fabric from his sleeve and reached it back to her. Arya swallowed, and when she finally managed to speak her voice sounded like a distant unfamiliar echo.

“Keep it.”


	3. Cracked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skinny dipping, girl talk, and a swordfight.

Arya watched from the saddle while her father bid farewell to Ser Gendry. She’d be glad to put that man behind her. When her father clapped him on the shoulder a wave of unease settled over her.

_Get behind me_.

She didn’t truly feel at ease until they put half a day’s travel between them and White Harbor. Their party moved slowly, but she was able to ride a bit ahead with Meera or her brothers and then wait for the rest of the group to catch up. It felt like a weight had been lifted once she’d gotten away from prying eyes and Ser Gendry. She wondered why she didn’t feel happy, exactly, now that it was over.

When they stopped at midday she pulled her spare breeches and tunic out of her saddlebag and she and Meera slipped into the trees near the river they had stopped at. Around the natural curve of the tributary that fed into the White Knife it was quiet and they were well hidden from view.

“Help me with my laces?”

“I can’t believe you made it through the whole tourney in a gown,” admitted Meera, pulling loose the ribbons that held her stays closed and slowly, measure by measure, Arya could breathe again.

“It’s the last time, I swear it.” she said, wadding up her gown and the boned undergarment that had become the bane of her existence. “They can’t complain. I gave them one whole tourney of my best behavior. I didn’t even get in any fights!” she rattled on. “I was a _perfect_ lady!”

Meera did not argue, but as they were both in their nameday suits and wading into the water they may have had equally low standards for what constituted a ‘perfect lady’.

The water was cold and to get it to reach their shoulders they had to sit on the streambed, but it was clean and she and Meera had swum in pools of ice melt since they were little. Arya hugged her knees and let the water numb her and Meera dragged her fingers through the stones beneath them, her thick brown curls wet and plastered against her shoulders.

“Sometimes I wish I could go to Greywater Watch with you and Jojen and Bran.”

“You only say that because you’ve never known the mosquitoes and biting flies we have in the marshes.” said Meera with a smile.

“I don’t care about the flies,” Arya insisted. “You get to hunt lizard-lions and carry a spear and no one ever makes you wear a gown.”

“I wouldn’t care if they did,” Meera said, sluicing water over her chest. “A gown is just a gown. You know who I am underneath it.”

Arya glanced pointedly at her friend’s bare breasts and suppressed a laugh.

“That’s not how I meant it.” said Meera, rolling her eyes.  “ _Bran_ knows who I am under- Arya stop, that’s not what I mean.” protested Meera, splashing at Arya with a laugh and a flush on her freckled cheeks. When Meera blushed- and she rarely did- she colored bright as sandsilk from her head to her toes.

“I know what you mean. It’s just all those people at the tourney… they don’t. They see the gown and that’s all they want to see.”

“Not all of them,” corrected Meera with a wicked smile. “Is this about Ser Gendry? Because I think if we’re talking about people who’d like to see under your gown…”

Now Arya was blushing. “That’s not what _I_ mean.”

From the tree above them came an exasperated sigh. “Neither of you have meant anything you’ve said since you got in the water.”

Meera quirked her brow up at Bran, who was perched over them on a branch that looked too thin to hold him. There was something to be said for his determination. Or the stupidity of an infatuated man, maybe.

“You shouldn’t be eavesdropping.” called Meera, her tone instantly a different sort of playful than it had been a moment before.

“It’s not an eave, it’s a tree.”

Arya sighed and stood, water pouring off her body in rivulets. “You two are terrible and Bran’s japes are even worse.”

The fabric of her breeches dragged on her damp skin, but the sun would have her dry by the time they mounted and moved on. Arya walked back to their resting place slowly, giving her friend and her brother a moment alone. Behind her there was the sound of cracking wood and a splash. She winced; glad that she wouldn’t have to be the one to come up with an explanation for Bran’s soaked clothes. Though to be fair, Ned Stark had stopped asking questions about such things where Bran and Meera were concerned quite some time ago. It was only a matter of time before the Starks and Reeds joined their houses, and Arya realized with a start that Bran was old enough to marry Meera now if he wanted. When had her little brother gotten that old?

Her little brother didn’t look little at all when he sauntered out of the brush a few minutes later, wet, dirty, and smiling. Meera slipped out of the trees a moment later and mounted her horse quietly, but everyone noticed. Rickon was opening his mouth to make a jape or ask a question, but Arya shut him up with a scowl. He’d gotten away with more than enough at the tourney to buy them all a little bit of blackmail silence.

They followed the White Knife for a ways, stopping at small holdfasts and friendly halls along the way, and once they met the Kingsroad there were inns to be found. Gradually Arya begin to feel like she had come back to her own skin. Maybe it was just being gone from the true north that had her feeling so odd at White Harbor.

 At Cerwyn they stopped to visit with Sansa and Cley and give the mounts a little rest after the heavy riding. Arya and Sansa didn’t quarrel like they had as girls, but Sansa was still Sansa and she was more wearying than any journey up the Kingsroad. When they’d finally left for the last stretch of travel before reaching Winterfell it was all Arya could do not to ride on at a gallop, her excitement for home thudding in her heart like a drumbeat.

And then with one lone rider on a silver horse it had all come crashing down.

~

“Did you win a prize at the tourney?” asked Robb in greeting, taking the bridle of her horse while she dismounted.

“Aye, she did. Look there.” said Theon, glancing at Gendry who was just then coming through the portcullis.

Robb did a quick double take. “What’s Ser Waters doing here?”

“Why don’t you ask him?” groused Arya. She was saddle-sore and tired and _annoyed_.

“Well _I’m_ not asking him. He can go where he pleases as far as I’m concerned. He killed more Walders during the rebellion than a whore’s pox.” said Theon, sparing a look of admiration for the new arrival.

“Stop being vulgar,” laughed Robb, smacking his friend in the back of the head.

“Don’t keep looking at him like that, he’s going to come over here!” hissed Arya.

“What’s wrong with that?” asked Robb, oblivious. “I rode with him. He’s a good man with a good arm. Father thinks very highly of him.”

“Yes, thanks Robb. I was hoping to hear more praise for stupid Ser Gendry.” she grumbled.

The man had looked entirely too pleased with himself when he cantered up next to them on the road, just as fresh as he’d been when she thought they’d parted for good. And her father had been too unsurprised to see him to suit Arya. Suddenly that friendly little shoulder pat upon parting in White Harbor made terrible sense to her.

Ser Gendry Waters was a long way from the Vale, and he would find Winterfell no more welcoming than he’d found the Twins during the rebellion if Arya had anything to say about it. And Arya always had entirely too much to say. He might have thought her a lady at the tourney- he must have, to beg her favor and give her his crown of Love and Beauty-but this was the North. Things were different here; he’d see soon enough. Arya Stark was no lady at all.

~

There’d been plenty enough to keep her too busy for _that man_ to bother. The Direwolves had been a yipping, swirling mass in the yard, tangling around their returned two-legged pack mates in a knot of confusion that startled the more skittish horses. Catelyn Stark swooped down on her children in the yard immediately, all smiles and kisses and wary appraisals to see that they had all made it back from the tourney intact.

If Sansa had sent a raven ahead Arya vowed to ride back to Cerwyn and ‘sheep-shift’ her featherbed.

Her mother stopped abruptly when she saw the extra rider they had returned with, and Arya had braced herself for a barrage of questions. But a glance at her husband and then her daughter and then Gendry in turn had apparently said enough for her to surmise some measure of the situation. Still, when they had proceeded into the Hall her mother had been sure to latch her arm firmly to Arya’s, a wiry inescapable grip that brooked no dispute.

“Jory, can you see that Arya’s things are brought up to her chambers? I’m of the mind that I might be able to get some of the stains out if they’re set upon quickly.” Catelyn smiled, and Arya sighed. She searched desperately for Meera, but Meera just sent her an apologetic look that said “Sorry, you’re on your own”.

Arya let herself be escorted to her bedchamber, and flopped onto her bed with a weary sigh. “Did Sansa send a raven?”

Catelyn looked immediately concerned. “Of course not, darling, why? What’s happened? You look like you’ve been through war.”

Wordlessly, Arya opened the lid of her trunk and shoved the wilted and smashed wreath into her mother’s hands. Catelyn stared at it in deep confusion. After a moment her shoulders began to shake and Arya couldn’t tell if she was laughing or crying.

As it turned out it was a bit of both.

“Oh Arya. Come here.” she chuckled, and Arya let herself be held for a moment. Her mother smelled familiar and comforting, like freshly scattered rushes and the dried herbs that hung in the kitchens, the oil she scented her bath with. Arya could only sniffle, miserably, as her mother stroked her hair. “I’m the queen,” she pronounced dully.

“There now, it’s all right.”

“I didn’t want to be. It was a stupid tourney and I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I should have been there.” said her mother regretfully. Arya winced. That was likely the only thing that would have made the tourney less enjoyable. “Is it really that awful?”

“Yes. Worse.” Arya had decided that she was going to pull the curtains on her bed and not leave again until she was forty.

“I’ll speak to your father. If he thinks it best…”

“No, not father.” She thought again of the shoulder pat. “Send a raven to Jon Arryn. He’s a knight of the Vale, make Lord Arryn call him back to do… something. Maybe there’s a fence that needs guarding. He can herd mules for the Eyrie.”

Catelyn opened the door with a pinch lipped smile.

“I’ll see what can be done.”

~

This was a sacred time in her day, the last vestiges of a life that was almost lost to her. Her own small rebellion was staged daily at Winterfell, out in the practice yard with her brothers and anyone else at the keep who wished to practice. Needle had been retired years before, her blade now heavier and thicker, more like the broadswords favored by her brothers. It fit her perfectly, but it put her at a distinct disadvantage against swords with twice the weight hefted by men who towered over her by a head or two. She’d adapted and used her smaller size and quickness (and no lack of sparring partners) to develop her own style. Any fool ought to know not to approach her when she held a blade.

She’d felt powerful and unconquered that morning when she’d pulled on her well-worn boots, breeches and tunic. She thought about asking Dacey for her hauberk; it would hang to Arya’s knees but she rather liked the idea of wearing mail about the yard. Her mother would pitch a fit.

 

Her mother was like to pitch a fit anyway because Arya was going to stab their guest before the morning was out.

She’d strolled out of the Hall feeling like the world was at her feet. A weak bit of sun was shining and Winterfell was buzzing with activity around her, the sounds and smells of home easing the tension from her like a hot bath. 

And then she’d seen him standing innocently in the training yard, sword in hand and chatting with Robb just like he belonged there.

“What are you doing here?” she’d barked.

“Arya,” her brother warned.

“No, Robb. He doesn’t need any practice.”

“Do you think so highly of my skill?” Gendry asked, slowly and deliberately.

“No. I don’t think all the practice in the world will help you.” she snapped back, and behind him she could see Dacey, Meera and Theon suddenly very interested in the string on Meera’s bow. She imagined it might take them all morning to restring it if it kept them in earshot.

“Might be you’re right,” he agreed.

“Good. So go away.”

“Arya!” That was Robb’s Heir of Winterfell voice. She ignored it.

“A bet then,” he offered. “If you don’t find me an equal match you can have the yard and I won’t waste your time with my poor sword skills.”

“Done.” she agreed, widening her stance and bringing up her blade so quickly Robb took a step back to save himself.

Gendry made to take a dulled tourney blade from the barrel next to the gate, but Arya shook her head.

“Live steel. Don’t worry, when I draw first blood I’ll let you cede peacefully.”

Robb was tensing his jaw now, and she dared him to contradict her.

He did. “Father won’t like this.”

“So go tell him. And be quick about it, maybe he can get down here before I embarrass our friend.” Arya smiled sweetly, and Gendry looked at Robb for confirmation. She smirked at his sudden apprehension. He’d be back on his horse and down the Kingsroad by nightfall.

Robb threw his arms up and left for the sidelines and she and the Bull were left to settle their bet. Gendry fell into a fool’s stance with practiced ease and a thoughtful expression.

“A fitting choice,” she offered, and brought her own blade up in an ox guard.

When he made his first move she slapped his side with the flat of her blade and still moved to shed his blow easily.

“There’s no need to hold back,” she assured him. “I’m used to live steel. I won’t cut you unless I mean to.”

“And what if I cut _you_?” he asked, adjusting his grip.

“We needn’t worry about that, ser.”

His second blow was stronger, and her shoulder absorbed the energy of the strike when her blade deflected it. Her answering offense was deliberately slow to gauge how he fought and find his weaknesses. He parried the blows with little effort, though it was obvious that he found it clumsy fighting against a much smaller opponent from the way he was pitching his elbow. She tapped it lightly to correct his form.

“I could break that joint.” she informed him. “You leave a lot of weak points open. You make a large target.”

He inclined his head in assent, and she made to take it off for him. He’d find her an easier opponent if he were shorter. Alas, he stepped back quickly. She pressed him on with a lower swipe.

“You smile a lot for a man who was almost gutted.” she informed him.

“Sorry,” he gritted, but he was still smiling. He mirrored her last swing, and she had to jump away to avoid his sword. He beat back her gains step by step and kept her moving too quickly for her to offer any sort of offensive maneuver, but her temper got the better of her. She took a clumsy swing, too forceful and too short. Gendry used her inertia against her just as he had let the Flint unbalance himself at the tourney, and Arya’s sword skidded across the stone.

She retrieved it, red-faced and panting. “Again.”

Arya steadied her emotions before she moved. She knew she was quicker than him, and this time she struck with focused precision. Feinted for the face, swept low at the leg and ran at him close. When their swords met she took his blade with her own and threw all of her weight behind the charge, forcing his wrist back until he’d had to let go of his weapon.

Theon was choking on his mirth, but as he’d refused to spar with Arya for years due to his own fear of getting disarmed by a girl she wasn’t sure what he was laughing about. Gendry seemed unbothered, and the two of them circled again, the fire of competition burning high.

It had taken a lot of her strength to get that sword out of his hand the first time. He wasn’t hesitant any longer and the blows that landed rattled her teeth. Their steel clashed again, and Arya knew she’d need to use the last of her reserve to disarm him now. Their blades locked and she shoved him back, but he was rooted in place. She might as well have given the Maester’s Turret a push; Gendry was immoveable. Their cross-guards collided and Arya wrenched against him, determined to push her sword past the block and against his neck.

It wasn’t until she grabbed the blade with her bare hand and took both swords to his shoulder that he slackened. She stared up at him in defiance, chest heaving and a shallow slice across her palm smearing red across the steel.

“First blood is mine,” said Arya triumphantly. “You can surrender now.”


	4. Demon Dance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I blame this chapter entirely on excess consumption of romance novels during my formative years.

Arya watched the way her boots swung at the ends of her legs, almost buried by her skirts. She let her feet dangle in the air and looked down at the grass and the pool beneath her perch. The air was cold but her skin felt hot, her cheeks burned like fire though her nose was completely numb. The heat might have been from the steam rising off the hot spring beneath her, but she was certain her numb nose was due to the wine. She could hear Bran and Meera nearby, scrabbling around in the branches of a tree far overhead like a pair of squirrels. Rickon and Jojen had the wine cask on a stump and were trying to drain the last dregs out by hammering at the tap with a stone, but Arya paid them no mind. She’d had enough wine for the evening.

Her reflection in the water below kept drawing her gaze. She looked like one of the faces of the old gods bathed in the moonlight, her face indistinct and white and her eyes and mouth rendered into dark slashes. Maybe _she_ was an old god or perhaps a child of the forest, some changeling that had been swapped into the Stark’s cradle and the real Arya Stark- a girl she pictured with neat auburn tresses like Sansa but eyes like Jon’s-was even now in a tree somewhere herself, wondering why she had to wear breeches and boiled leather when all she had ever wanted was silks and stays.

“It’s a long fall to the ground,” said a voice beneath her.

Gods damn the man, he was everywhere.  It had been decided their sparring resulted in a draw, even Dacey and Meera agreed. And that raven to Jon Arryn had never been sent. For nearly a fortnight she’d had to grudgingly make room for Gendry in their yard and their hall, since mother and father insisted on sitting him with the family. _Treachery_.

“I never fall,” she retorted with Bran’s signature reply, though the fact that she was lurching a bit when she said it may have made it less convincing. Ser Gendry was certainly staring up at her doubtfully.

The sounds of Bran and Meera in the leaves and Rickon and Jojen beating on the cask had ended abruptly at the sound of Gendry’s voice and Arya cursed them all for cowards. Or nosy- she could just imagine the four of them waiting to see how she handled this, purely for their own amusement.

“The godswood is rather less solemn than I had pictured it.” he ventured.

“Were you planning on staying here long or shall I leave?” she said icily. The last thing she needed was his stupid handsome face following her around everywhere. It was bound to end poorly.

“I hadn’t made any plans,” he shrugged. “But perhaps I might accompany you back to the keep if you have finished your… devotions.”

Arya looked down at him, trying not to fall as she shimmied down the tree trunk clumsily, her feet tangling in her skirts. The optimistic look on his face was enough to make her head hurt if the wine hadn’t already had it throbbing. But his face was spinning a bit, and she had to close her eyes and cling tight to the tree or else she was certain she was going to whirl right off.

“That won’t be necessary. I’ll find my own way.” she said as firmly as she could manage. Unfortunately her toes slid on the smooth bark of the weirwood just then and she had to hug the trunk tightly to keep from landing arse first in the pool.

With a sigh Gendry plucked her from the tree like she was a wayward apple and no heavier than the fruit might have been. His arms felt much like the tree trunk she’d just been pried off of if she were being truthful, though his chest was much more comfortable to settle against.

“What would your honorable parents say if I were to let you walk back to your rooms drunk and unescorted? What if you tumbled into the moat and drowned?” he said softly, his breath stirring the hairs at the nape of her neck.

“Let me worry about my parents. You can worry about… your armor. And your tournaments and that stupid face of yours.” she bossed, but the man wouldn’t be cowed even by her very coldest courtly tone.

She’d finally had to extricate herself from his grasp and stomp off through the woods just so she didn’t have to look at him anymore. At least he’d eventually stopped trying to take her elbow and just trailed her through the godswood, though the trip seemed to be taking a very long time. There was a lot of stumbling. For the third time she found herself clutching a fistful of loam and reeling unsteadily while the ground moved under her feet.

“Are you sure you won’t take my hand, my lady?”

She spun on him and nearly tipped over again. “There will be no taking of hands between the two of us. Not ever.”

Arya expected a look of hurt, but he only smirked at her crookedly and shrugged. “I only meant to help you across the yard.”

“It’s not far until we reach the cobblestones. They’re evener.” she informed him, toddling on alone.

Gendry wasn’t far behind her. Not far enough, at least.

“That’s true, but if you fall on the cobblestones you might dash your skull to pieces.”

 A fair enough point. Arya heaved a dramatic sigh. “If I let you hold my arm will you keep quiet? You’re going to get me caught talking so loud.”

“That seems fair,” he granted, his fingers closing over her hand gently. “I’ll be my very quietest.”

“Good.” Her own voice bounced off the stone and echoed back to her, and it occurred to her that she may have been the one who was being so noisy. No matter. Silence would suit her fine.

They made much better time with him holding her up when she tripped and fumbled. He would have dutifully taken her all the way to her chamber if she had let him, but Arya pulled him into a dark courtyard far enough from any sleeping family members to get rid of him.

“Okay. You can go.”

He made no move to leave so she shooed him impatiently, but he seemed reluctant. She could tell he had something _stupid_ to say. “What is it now?”

“I wish you’d talk to me. I’m not such a bad man. Jon Arryn saw fit to make a knight of me and your father-“

Arya rolled her eyes though she felt he might have missed much of her poisonous expression in the dark little corner where they stood.

“I haven’t forgotten you’re a knight, you know. Well, you’ve rescued me. Saved me from falling out of the tree, breaking my head in the yard and drowning in the moat- and all in one evening. I hope there’s a tourney in your honor, ser. I won’t even ask you to name me queen of love and beauty. Name your horse for all I care. Name anyone at all _but me_.” she was raging at him quietly now- at least she hoped she was managing to do it quietly.

Gendry’s expression had finally started looking a bit morose, and for a moment she felt bad for being so mean, always, but she just couldn’t seem to stop fighting for a second. Even with him. Arya was starting to feel a nagging suspicion somewhere buried deep (where she kept her regard for rules and propriety) that maybe she was going too far this time. It didn’t stop her. The taunt would be issued regardless, and she would call his bluff once and for all. She’d had an idea, somewhere distant and currently out of reach, that if she gave him what he wanted maybe he’d leave once the novelty had worn off.

He’d been more concerned about defending her honor than she’d ever been. _Let him protect it from himself, then._

For being a knight that was supposed to have foiled a rebellion Arya was unimpressed with his reaction time. He blinked at her in surprise when she fisted her hands in his collar and yanked him into her reach, crushing her lips against his roughly. If he had mistaken her for a lady she’d set him right. His beard stubble was rough against her chin but she didn’t let it stop her, laving his closed mouth lewdly with her tongue before she released him and they staggered apart.

For a moment Arya felt satisfaction. _There_. He’d probably think she was mad now, and no man wanted a drunken and insane woman, even stupid Ser Soft Lips with the big arms over there. 

Gendry’s frustrated sigh wasn’t what she had expected. “What are you doing?”

“Kissing you, stupid. Isn’t that what you wanted? To steal a kiss from your lady? You travelled all the way from White Harbor for something, and the sooner you get it the sooner you leave.”

“You’re drunk,”

“Yes,” she acknowledged. “a bit.”

“I’m not going to kiss you when you don’t even know what you’re doing.” He was sullen, like she’d reprimanded him instead of taking a taste of those stubborn-set lips.

“I know exactly what I’m doing.” she told him, hooking her fingers under his belt and jerking him closer. That was an exaggeration, but he needn’t know that. “And you’ve already kissed me once.”

“You kissed me,” he argued back, his voice low and throaty. She swore she could feel it when he spoke, a rumble that touched her bones.

“That’s an unimportant detail to anyone who would find us here.”

His hands had spanned her waist gently to keep her still while they decided about who was going to end this. Now he brought their bodies close again like they were partners in a dance she didn’t know the steps to. It might have been any dance at all, but she was quite sure she’d never tried this one before.

Arya felt acutely aware of every point of contact, like his touch might wake something best left undiscovered. _Too late_. An unbidden question sprung to the forefront- what might this feel like if her dress wasn’t in the way? “You’re a knight. Stealing secret kisses from their ladies is what knights do. It’s in the songs.”

Gendry seemed to be giving her reasoning more scrutiny than was entirely necessary. He still held her, but gingerly, like he wasn’t quite sure she was really there and was afraid she might turn to fog at his fingertips if this spell was broken. When they were this close she could feel the catch in his breath, the clench and unclench of his uncertain hands. 

Finally the scale had tipped. She saw it happen when his expression had softened but his eyes went hard. Maybe it was the drink, but suddenly everything was _slow_ and all she felt was urgency with his blue eyes looking down at her like that, heavy with want. “If you’re going to _make_ me steal a kiss from my lady I’d like a proper one,” he said softly, his fingers curling into the small of her back possessively.

He made a soft sound a bit like a sigh against her mouth when their lips touched, a sound of unfulfilled longing, a sound of carefully managed restraint. Gendry’s kiss was every bit as easy and coaxing as hers had been rash and rough. His lips were warm and willing now, and much more persuasive than hers had proven to be. She found herself parting her lips eagerly when he pressed against them with his tongue, all pretenses of chivalrous intent gone. He suckled at her bottom lip, plumped it with his teeth and all she could do was _feel,_ the way his body was firm against hers and how she fit into him just right, the surge of energy that shot from her lips to her toes and everywhere in between.

This must be why she wasn’t supposed to let a man kiss her in dimly lit corners of the castle. Only Arya wasn’t sure anymore if he was kissing her or making love to her, the way he was sliding his mouth along her jaw, down her throat to suck at her collarbone. When he dipped his fingers under the neck of her gown she threw her head back and sank her hands into his hair; letting him take what he wanted, giving into the wine haze and the desire that she refused to acknowledge in the sober light of day.

“Is this all right?” he asked, husky voiced and very, very near.

Arya never got the chance to answer. Down the corridor a wooden door opened, the hinges squeaking slightly and a yellow circle of candlelight appearing in the darkness.

Instead of springing apart like would have been wise he’d crowded her against the wall, protecting her with his body and hiding them both in the dark and the silence. Training her ears to the sound down the corridor, Arya let her head tip forward to rest against his chest, inhaling a breath of woods and smoke and iron underscored with his own scent, the smell of bare skin that she’d found when she burrowed her nose in his neck to whisper up to him. “That’s the servant’s chamber. They’ll pass in a moment.”

She measured that moment in the rise and fall of his chest against her cheek, the sound of his heart against her ear. It seemed a very short moment. Footsteps echoed on the stone faintly then louder, fading into the distance when they’d been passed by unnoticed.

They stayed there a moment in the silence. She might have stood there all night but that servant would come back eventually, and Gendry was thinking a bit more clearly than she was.

“You should go to bed before you’re missed.”

She was sure she imagined the regret and the uncertainty, the wry amusement in his voice.

“I’ll do that,” she promised, trailing her fingertips along the stone wall to steady herself. Just as soon as everything stopped spinning.


	5. Crush'd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arrivals, departures, consequences, revelations. A ton of stuff happens, and I see how many times I can use 'Oh' in one chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I wanted to take a moment and thank all of you who are reading this for your kind comments and all the love. I fully intend on finishing this and I'm guessing we've got 2-3 chapters left depending what else I decide to throw in.

It was Jory who had come to fetch her. She should have known from his face that this wasn’t to be a simple conversation with her parents but she had been too busy wondering what they’d found out about this time to notice his tension.

She hoped it wasn’t the time they’d snuck out to race their horses. They’d almost lost Rickon in that hedge when his horse had balked and he’d gone _into_ it rather than over it. But she and Meera had pulled him out in no time at all, and his head was hard enough to take a bit of a rattle.

She _really_ hoped no one had noticed that cask of wine missing that they’d taken. It had been awful wine and she was certain no one would miss it, but maybe someone had. Ned Stark wouldn’t like his three youngest and his two wards getting reelingly intoxicated anywhere at all, let alone in the branches of the heart tree. And that was the night Gendry had kissed her. Or she kissed him. Arya had some difficulty recalling the exact events.

She’d almost made it out of their bedchamber the next morning when Meera had grabbed her arm with a gasp of surprise and hauled her back into the room. She couldn’t imagine what would have happened if Meera hadn’t noticed the love bite on her collarbone. It was small and not terribly dark, but the mark of teeth was evident. Arya had sat in front of their neglected looking glass and studied it, the memory of Gendry’s mouth _there_ turning her so pink that the love bite had all but disappeared. They’d missed breakfast looking for something with a high enough neckline to hide it.

Maybe someone had seen it. Her hand darted to her throat unconsciously, pulling at the scratchy collar and dreading _that_ conversation with her father.

Her heart sank a bit when she saw her mother was there too, waiting in the family’s private solar. They’d certainly found out about something, then.  She’d been thinking up a plausible excuse for her behavior when Catelyn had smiled at her warmly and patted the seat of the chair next to her. “Come sit down, Arya.”

 _Oh no._ Her suspicion must have been plain to see, because Ned had sighed his familiar sigh- the one that was only reserved for Arya.

“Maybe you should leave us alone, Cat.”

Her mother started to protest, but after another long look at her daughter she relented. “If you’re certain. I’ll be in the sept if you need reinforcements.” That last bit had been half under her breath, but Arya heard it anyway.

When the door closed behind her mother the silence settled heavily over them.

“Whatever I’ve done this time I didn’t mean it, I swear.”

Her father chuckled and smoothed a wisp of hair out her forehead.

“I would tell you that you haven’t done anything, but we both know that’s unlikely to be true. Whatever it is I don’t want to know about it. That isn’t why I wanted to speak with you.”

“Oh.” Worse than being in trouble, then. Couldn’t she just have a scolding?

“Gendry came to speak with me a few nights ago.” Ned started, hands behind his back in a failed effort to look nonchalant.

“Oh?” She called Gendry stupid a lot, but she really hoped he hadn’t been stupid enough to tell her father about that kissing incident.

“Do you find him agreeable, Arya?”

“No.” she said, too quickly and without meeting her father’s eyes.

Ned sighed. “Is that the truth of it?”

“Does it matter if it’s not?”

“You don’t _have_ to hate the lad, you know.” He told her drily.

“I’ll keep that in mind, father.”

He paced in front of the window for a moment, the light catching on the silvery strands in his dark hair before he spoke. “Your mother always accused me of favoring you.”

“Do you?”

“Sometimes,” he smiled.  “Though I confess, this conversation would be much easier with Sansa.”

“Just have done with it, please.” she groaned.

“I’ve been getting marriage offers for you since the day you were born. From old men and little tots and lads without their first beard. Insulting offers and gracious ones, for husbands and houses you’d be poorly suited to or where you could be just as comfortable as within our own walls. From people you know and people you’ll likely never meet. And Ser Gendry is the first who has ever made me even seriously consider a match.”

“He asked you?” Arya asked her father, momentarily stunned. She wasn’t surprised, exactly, but it felt unbelievable all the same.

“Oh yes. I think he’d beg me if he thought it would win me over.”

She couldn’t think of anything to say to that. Arya had never even considered that anyone would ever truly care enough about wedding _her_ rather than her birthright to _beg_ for her hand.  

“He seems very sincere.” Ned was speaking to her gently now, “and I think it would be a good match. You’re more well-suited than you realize.”

She thought of Gendry, of the way it felt to be pressed between him and the wall with her hands tangled in his hair. They’d seemed very well suited then, and the fact is that long after the mark on her neck fades she’ll still be looking for it in the mirror to remind her what his kiss was like.

“I don’t want to marry him. I want to stay in Winterfell.” she insisted, twisting her skirt in her hands.

Ned pressed his lips to her forehead. “You don’t have to leave. Not even I would ask you for that. You’re a Stark more than any man’s wife, and your heart is part of these stones.”

Her heart didn’t feel like a stone. It felt like a pot of boiling water.

“Winterfell might have fallen if not for Gendry,” he reminded her softly. “I owe the man.”

_Not me. You don’t owe him me._

But he did. A daughter was currency, a reward, a treaty, even for men like Eddard Stark. She’d been allowed to forget that, playing at being a boy with her brothers. It was beyond missing now that she was a woman grown. Arya took a deep, shaky breath and forced herself to open her eyes and face her father and his betrayal.

Ned seemed to have a close idea of what she had been thinking. “I won’t make you marry him, Arya. I’ll put him out the gates myself, this very night, if you look at me and tell me on your honor as a Stark, that you’ve never-“

He took a very deep breath before he finished.

 “- _considered_ him.”

And that was the worst part of it, the crux of all the impotent anger she’d felt about _everything_ since that first moment she’d laid eyes on him. She couldn’t lie about something that felt so obvious, not even when she’d been lying to herself about it for weeks. Not even to save herself could she deny it now. Miserably, she studied her ragged thumbnail to hide a frustrated tear and didn’t say anything at all.

“I think he’ll make you happy, Arya. If you let him.”

Those words echoed in her head for days.

~

She’d barely spoken with him since that night they’d kissed. He’d seemed to draw back after that, and when she hadn’t _exactly_ refused to marry him there was no point in him trying to chase after her all the time. He’d caught her in the only way that mattered.

No sooner than the betrothal was announced everything had plunged into chaos, and Arya barely noticed any of it. Gendry had to ride to the Eyrie and hope that Jon Arryn would release him to serve Winterfell, since she had no intention of leaving the North. She supposed Gendry had other preparations to make too, if he was going to relocate. He was leaving soon, and when he returned they’d be married and it’d all be done.

Sansa had ridden in from Cerwyn immediately on hearing of the engagement. The Wall itself wouldn’t have kept her sister from a wedding. She and Mother and every able pair of hands had started sewing Arya’s wedding gown, though Arya didn’t see why she couldn’t just wear one of her other gowns. It would be covered by her cloak anyway. But they said she needed a dress, so she stood and let them measure and cut and stitch and tried not to complain overmuch. It wouldn’t do any good, and her mother was already looking a little frayed.

Arya felt a little bit useless to tell the truth. Everything was a whirl of activity and she felt as though she was standing still in the middle of it all. At the moment that was literally true, and she stepped aside to let a cart pass in the yard before it ran her down while she thought about her life. She spotted Bran near the kennels, and ran gratefully to catch up.

“What are you doing?” she asked hopefully.

He looked at her sidelong. Perhaps she’d sounded too eager.  “I’m supposed to be helping write out letters of invite for the wedding.”

“Well… do you have to?”

“I don’t know. Are you still getting married?”

“Yes?”

Bran held up two bottles of blue-black ink for her inspection. “Then I’ve got letters to write.”

“Meera?”

He made a face. “Gown.”

“Seven hells, they got her too?”

“And Dacey. They’ll have to let out one of her old ones, I heard them arguing about which one when I went to get the ink.”

For the first time in her life Arya truly wished she was skilled with needlework. At least she’d have something to do instead of trying to keep out of the way. She let Bran go to tend to his letters and found herself alone again. Near the kitchens the cart from earlier had stopped, and Arya spied a sack of apples. She tore a hole just large enough for her hand and took two, scampering off before anyone noticed her. It was a force of habit from her childhood. She was a grown lady now, she could have as many apples as she liked. They’d probably just prefer she didn’t steal them off the cart.

Pocketing one and biting into the other she walked slowly back to the stable, half intending to bribe Ser Gendry’s horse into losing his way somewhere between here and the Vale. She nearly choked on the last bite of her apple when she walked into the long building and saw the object of her plot himself, checking that his mount had been properly saddled.

Arya turned on her heel to go back the way she came, but the near choking had alerted everyone in hearing distance of her presence. Including Gendry.

“Are you all right?”

“Fine.” she croaked, reaching up to pat Steel on the nose. He lipped her fingers eagerly, seeking the apple she’d brought him. Arya _might_ have snuck him treats a time or two before.

“I was hoping to see you before I left,” he started. “There hasn’t been a spare moment since…”

“Not a moment.” she agreed. They’d both been avoiding one another and this awkward conversation. She had a sudden thought. “What are you wearing?”

Gendry held out his arms and looked down at his travelling clothes.

“No. The wedding.”

“Hadn’t thought about it, really.” He shrugged. Oh to have that luxury- Arya had been buried in fabric swatches since she’d walked out of that solar betrothed. “I suppose armor isn’t fitting.”

“I don’t know. I like your armor.”

“I’ll find something.” he had finished checking all the straps and buckles and she realized he was really going, finally, and it felt worlds different from when they’d parted in White Harbor. They stared at one another for a moment in a very pregnant silence. Arya wanted to say something, but didn’t know where to start, and he didn’t seem to have any more of an idea than she did.

It was just… he was leaving. And she, somehow, felt a bit lonely when she thought about that, though she’d barely spoken to him in days. She’d known he was there, at least, and been able to sneak glances when she wanted. He was nice to glance at.

When it’d become apparent that they’d stand there until the Wall fell without speaking he’d cleared his throat and taken to the saddle, and Arya found herself watching him ride off.

“Wait!” she called, half a whisper and half a shout. She grabbed Steel by the bridle and led him to the mounting block, scrambled up the stone before she could talk herself out of it. Arya spared one last glance to make sure no one was watching, then pressed her lips to Gendry’s cheek.  “I suppose I’ll be here when you get back.”

He smiled at her and tugged her close again, brushing his lips over hers. “I suppose I’ll hurry.”

~

After a moon’s turn she’d decided he was very bad at hurrying. There’d been a raven when he’d reached the Eyrie and gotten Lord Arryn’s blessing. Of course if the Vale ever needed reinforcements Winterfell would have sent them regardless, but now they were assured. Arya and Gendry were free to marry and live wherever they pleased. 

Another moon, another Raven. He was departing and swore he’d be there in time for the wedding which was well and good since the dress was finished and the food stockpiled and everything was done but _Gendry was taking forever_. Dacey’s gown would need letting out again if he tarried, or perhaps taking in again if the babe had better timing than Gendry. Even her parents started looking a bit worried as the days and weeks went by and Arya wanted very badly to remind them that this had all been their idea.

She told herself she didn’t watch out the windows for him. She told herself when the cry came of a rider in the distance that she wouldn’t run down to the gate to wait for him after the first time when it had only been Cley and Arya had felt stupid and disheartened  afterwards.

By the eve before the wedding she’d vacillated between wanting to kill him and wanting desperately to see him all day. Her mother and Sansa refused to acknowledge that the wedding had no groom and were putting the last touches on everything. Arya was in some sort of a trance just like the rest of them- mindlessly packing her things to be moved into _their_ new quarters. She was on her hands and knees under the bed when her hand had brushed the crackling, powdery leaves and blossoms. She had forgotten leaving the wreath there for the mice to have. They hadn’t found it yet, and it was still mostly intact. Arya had a stroke of inspiration and set it aside. She’d dispose of it properly later.

 It was spitting rain and just after dark when Nymeria had raised her head from her paws and howled, jumping up from her place by the hearth and racing to the door. Arya had ended her vigil early that night because it had been especially depressing, and with fog and rain she hadn’t been able to see anything anyway. So she cursed herself for an idiot when she ran to the window and looked out, as if now that it was full dark she’d be able to see better simply because she wanted it to be so.

Hooves, though. Hooves on the bridge and on the stone.

She burst out of the doors with such force the poor groom sitting on the steps had jumped and landed in a puddle.  Arya didn’t keep the seven as much as she kept the northern faith, but she thanked every last god she knew when she saw that Gendry hadn’t forgotten they were supposed to be married tomorrow after all.

She’d had a list of things she’d thought of to say. Most of them were currently oaths due to the late hour he’d chosen to arrive. He was mud-spattered and Hot Pie’s horse looked about ready to drop from under him. From somewhere a few servants had appeared, and the puddle groom led Steel away when Gendry dismounted.

He looked weary, and not simply travel weary. The concern that she’d thought gone came back again, and his grim smile was a poor imitation of a real one.

“What’s the matter?”

He shook his head. “Not here. Private. Very private.”

There was only one place she could think of where no one would expect him to be.

“Sorry. I was packing.” she explained. Gendry looked hesitant to sit anywhere all covered in mud, so she finally took him by the shoulders and sat him down in the chair while she got him a cup of wine.

“If you’ve come to jilt me you rode a very long way. You might have sent a bird instead.”

He did manage a smile at that, though it was still weak.  She took a seat on her bed and waited for the news to fall.

Gendry tried to start, and then laughed. “This is the most ridiculous I’ve ever felt.”

“Just say whatever it is, Gendry. I’ve worried enough over you.”

“You worried over me?” _That_ was a real smile.

“No.”

He stared down deep into his wine like there were answers written at the bottom of the cup.  “Promise me you’ll never tell.”

“Not ever.”

“I’m serious, Arya- this is… people can’t know.”

“I’m serious too. If I say I won’t tell then I won’t.”

He sighed again and ran his fingers through his damp hair. “Jon Arryn thinks I’m Robert Baratheon’s bastard. That’s why when he was the Hand he sent me out of King’s Landing. He wouldn’t say why, but I don’t suppose it matters now.”

It didn’t. Robert Baratheon had died before the last winter, and after Joffrey died Tommen took the throne with his mother as regent. Still. A king’s bastard could start making all sorts of claims that any other baseborn would never dare.

“And your mother?”

“Well she certainly never mentioned _that._ She’s dead on twenty years now.”

“Does it matter to you? Who your father was, I mean?”

“No. It’s just… a king’s bastard?”

Arya nodded. That was quite a bit to take.

“Jon says I look just like him.”

“I never met him. My father always…” Several things made sense suddenly. “Seven hells. Did Jon Arryn tell anyone else about this?”

“Not that he said.”

He wouldn’t have to, though. Her father had known Robert Baratheon well enough to recognize his blood when he saw it.

“I don’t know what we’re supposed to do with this information.” she admitted.

Gendry shrugged. “Neither do I. Jon is a very old man now; I suppose he thought I ought to know before he dies. He said this way if we have children we’ll know not to let them marry any Baratheons.”

Arya couldn’t stop her laughter. “The man is on his deathbed and worried about the incestuous future marriages of our children? Our children who don’t exist?”

“I get the impression Jon Arryn has a personal distaste for those sorts of relationships.”

“I thought everyone did.”

“Not the Targaryens.”

“Well no, not them. “ Arya agreed.

Nymeria was scratching at the door, and when Arya opened it to let her in she found her father coming down the corridor in a rush. He seemed relieved to see her.

“I don’t suppose you’ve got your betrothed in there, Arya. Your mother is scouring the castle as we speak. It wouldn’t do for her to find him in your bedchamber.”

Arya feigned ignorance. “Oh, did he make it back in time for the wedding?”

“ _If_ you see him tell him there’s a meal for him and his squire in the Hall.”

“If _you_ see him tell him not to bother me. I’ll see him tomorrow.”

From Ned’s tone it sounded very much like there was a lot he’d like to say at the moment but he settled for “Goodnight, Arya.”

When she turned to face Gendry he looked pale, even beneath the mud. Arya laughed so hard she was afraid her father was going to come back and see what was the matter.

“Go eat your supper before it gets cold. I’m sure they’re having a bath readied for you.”

His hand lingered on hers for a moment, but he had taken her father’s warning to heed and she watched him sneak down the corridor until he disappeared. She only hoped he didn’t run into her mother on the stairs.

 

That night when everyone had gone to bed she picked up the wreath and carefully tried to tuck it under her cloak without smashing it the rest of the way. Her candle guttered in the drafts and the rain, but she found a torch by one of the guard stations and it held up to the weather much better.

She ought to have been afraid of going into the crypts by herself in the darkness, but she’d grown up crawling over the tombs with her brothers and she’d never felt scared before. Nymeria raced down the steps ahead of her, just inside the circle of light cast by the flame.

The only face that she’d ever know of her aunt’s was cold and stone, slowly becoming indistinct under the niter. Arya found a holding place for her torch and let it cast its feeble light in the blackness. She’d never felt much of a bond with the dead woman she resembled so strongly until recently. Then she’d felt like maybe they were more alike than she’d ever really believed.

From under her cloak she pulled the flowers. They weren’t pretty and white like they had once been, but they still smelled faintly sweet and she hadn’t known what else to do with them. This seemed an honorable end for them. They fit loosely on Lyanna’s stone head, but the crown stayed put. When she’d thought to bring the wreath here she hadn’t even known about Gendry’s lineage. Even more fitting, then. A Baratheon had loved her aunt too, but he hadn’t been the one to give her his crown.

“I hope this ends better now than it did then.” said Arya into the stillness, leaving the flowers for the ghosts and the stones.


	6. Breaking Lances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The all important and wayyyy too long wedding chapter.

She might have liked him once. She had liked him last night, even. But she’d been sitting in the same damned chair for what felt like hours, having her hair woven into a plait so tight and elaborate she was going to need a lock pick to get the pins out tonight. She’d been scoured and scrubbed pink and raw, perfumed and powdered like she’d always sworn she’d never let them do to her, never. And it was someone’s fault, and at the moment that person was _everyone_ and even _him_.

She might have run for the wall and taken the black if they would have had her. _A wildling, then_ , she thought, as the brush hit a snarl and tears came to her eyes. Wildlings probably didn’t even have brushes.  

No, Jon had told her a wildling man stole his wife, and that was hardly any better than having your father pick your husband. At least Eddard Stark had a reputation for good judgment. And she hadn’t disagreed, exactly…

Sansa was unable to contain her excitement, and though Arya could recall only a day full of tedium her sister looked riveted by every moment of the elaborate preparations. Arya spared a glance in the mirror, surprised at the height of her hair for only an instant before scowling at Sansa’s reflection. She was bouncing on the edge of Arya’s bed like a little girl.

“Stop it, Sansa. Honestly, you’d think you were the one getting married.” And Sansa’s wedding had certainly been enough of a production to satisfy anyone for life.

“I feel like I am,” her sister admittedly breathlessly. “I love weddings.”

 Like everyone hadn’t known.

“And you’re marrying a knight!” she made a restrained little noise of ladylike excitement that might have been a squeal if she wasn’t so proper.

A knight indeed. Gendry might have been a blacksmith once or a prince on the other side of a sheet somewhere.

But here and now he was knight, and Arya wasn’t sure how that had happened. Everything seemed as backward as the reflection in her mirror. Sansa with her knights and princes had married stolid, unremarkable Cley Cerwyn who had used to race ponies with Arya and Bran while Sansa shrieked that they weren’t _supposed_ to and Arya had somehow ended up with the southron knight who rode for her honor, of all things. He was even tall and dark haired and blue eyed and grudgingly handsome with a convoluted past.

 _I ought to write stories,_ she thought. _My life has become a saga_.

“He’s not a proper knight.” she sulked, repeating that which had been said often enough.

No one had even heard of him a year ago. The gossip had started immediately when the match had been announced. Everyone wanted to know why Ned Stark was marrying one of his daughters to some bastard out of the South with no holdings. Arya had heard that she was now pregnant over breakfast one morning and had been quite surprised at the news. She also might have been insane, or a bastard herself that Ned was anxious to be rid of depending on who you asked.

Not that _she_ cared about any of that, but it was all enough to make her head hurt _without_ the braids.

Sansa seemed insulted on Gendry’s behalf. “Of course he’s a true knight, Arya. He’s very honorable. You know you’ll be getting some hold for a wedding present, and then he’ll be landed and then he’ll become a lord and your childr-

“Sansa.”

“What?”

“Not now, please.”

A patronizing look was exchanged around the room behind her, where they thought she couldn’t see.

“Are you feeling anxious about the bedding?” Sansa whispered, loudly. Even Dacey’s hands faltered, still holding the comb she was trying to fit into Meera’s curls and Arya could _feel_ her mother flinch even across the room.

“No!” Arya snapped. “It’s not that.” She couldn’t believe Sansa had brought up the bedding when she had devoted so much energy into NOT thinking about it.

Sansa, ever the helpful sister, didn’t hesitate nearly as much as might have been wise. “You get used to it, really.”

“Just stop talking about it,” Arya moaned, going to bury her head in her hands until the maid dressing her hair tugged on a braid to remind her to stay still.

Arya’s mother had set her down and had a very awkward conversation about what to expect. Arya had known most of it and rather… _guessed_ a bit of the rest, used her imagination, studied the matter when she ought have been eating her supper rather than staring at the way Gendry’s lips moved when he spoke- but it was still _horrible_ to have your mother explain.

Family. Duty. Honor. Those were the Tully words, but apparently it would do her well to recite them tonight if she couldn’t bear having him in her bed. _And think of Winterfell._

Arya loved her home deeply and with a fierce loyalty but she was quite certain its towers didn’t inspire the sort of feelings in her that you ought to have in your marriage bed.

Catelyn hadn’t even offered Arya the consolation of children for her efforts, knowing that the thought wouldn’t be a comfort to her youngest daughter as it had been for the eldest. And well, with that to look forward to who could complain about being stripped to your smallclothes in the Great Hall? It was a small discomfort in comparison to the act itself.

One of Cley’s ancient great-aunts stirred from her drowsing by the fire just long enough to add her sage advice. “You can lay back and shut your eyes, and pretend to yourself that you’re sleeping.” She nodded to herself, heavy lidded. “Only mind you don’t actually fall asleep, it wouldn’t do to insult him.”

Sansa’s maid pulled the last of the pins from between her full red lips and added it to Arya’s coiffure, finally. “If I were marrying him I wouldn’t be shutting my eyes or my legs, that’s for sure.”

Sansa scolded her lady, but she was blushing and not quite as scandalized as she would have everyone believe. When they’d stayed at Cerwyn Sansa had often been quite late to breakfast and more disheveled than sleeping alone might have rendered her.

Catelyn smoothly intervened with a call for food to be brought in, a light meal that was supposed to tide them over until the feast. It was a carefully prepared tray of some of Arya’s favorites but she could only pick over it. The food she tried was as bland and unpalatable as marriage itself. She longed to step outside for a moment or two, just to breathe and have a second’s silence, but they’d been sequestered in her mother’s room all day and it was nearly dusk now, almost time.

There’d been more fussing, some hushed whispers and relayed messages with the septon through the closed door. Then it was Dacey who dressed Arya, her reassuring smile and soft touch the only steadying influence in a crowd of cooing ladies, all exclaiming over how pretty Arya looked and how fine the dress. Arya had chosen the pewter colored brocade with little consideration at the time, but she supposed it had suited her after all, the pattern of leaves and carefully embroidered embellishments gleaming coldly when the light caught them.

Her mother shook out the length of the maiden’s cloak, the heavy fabric falling to the floor in a tumult of white and dark grey. It was heavy as armor when they pulled it over her shoulders and fastened it tight, her mother holding her by the arms for a moment to look at her.

“Don’t look so sour faced,” her mother said gently, cupping her cheek and pressing a kiss to her forehead.

When Arya stepped hesitantly toward the door the cloak whipped around her legs. It wasn’t her cloak at all but Sansa’s, as there hadn’t been time to make another and there was no need for two of the things anyway. Sansa hadn’t stopped fretting that she was going to soil it, with the Stark colors being so light and the godswood so muddy today after the night’s rain. Meera, amusingly adorned in sapphire colored satin, had lifted the corner of the cloak and kept it from brushing the stone on their walk to meet the rest of the procession.

Passing their household, the smallfolk she knew as well as family, Arya hadn’t felt nervous at all. It wasn’t until she saw the lamps lit and her father took her arm to walk her to the godswood that she felt her nerves. Then her stomach had gone into knots, and she wondered if she was going to get sick all over Sansa’s stupid cloak.

Arya kept her eyes straight ahead and didn’t see anything or anyone she passed. If she looked now she would turn craven and run. If it hadn’t been for her father she already would have. It was Ned’s face she looked at as her hand was placed in her groom’s. She knew that she couldn’t meet Gendry’s eyes just yet.

When it came time to face him at last she stared into the fabric of his collar instead, and thought, stupidly, that he had found something other than armor to wear after all. Normally she wouldn’t have taken note of it at all but now, desperate for distraction she admired the austerity of black and thanked the gods that though he was Southron by birth he didn’t waste his coin on baubles and adornments. Gods knew they were a gaudy bunch.

She found it difficult to focus on the septon’s words of welcome. Her fingers were trembling and that annoyed her, she willed them to go still before Gendry thought her foolish. His hand was large, calloused and warm and gripped her shaking fingers gently. He gave her a little reassuring squeeze, something only between the two of them that none of the people at their backs would ever share. Arya clasped his hands tight, till her joints ached, like he was the only thing holding her there. Only then did she take a deep, fortifying breath and glance at his face.

He was smiling tremulously at her, his own happiness evident in spite of his damp palms. Would that she could match his enthusiasm. Her gaze seemed to stick on those lips and when he wetted them with his tongue she suddenly remembered he was going to kiss her in front of all these people, not in a dark little alcove this time. She had to look away again at the thought.

So she stared over his elbow and into the trees of the godswood. Six sets of glowing eyes stared back, catching the light of the flickering torches. The wolves had come to see her wed, and it comforted her to know that they were near. They might be the only guests at this wedding she was still glad to see by the end of the night.

Gendry pried his hands loose from hers long enough to unfasten the maiden’s cloak and hand it to someone behind her. She hoped it was Sansa so her sister would stop fretting about it. His own cloak was still warm when he wrapped it around her but she shivered when his knuckles brushed her throat. The anxious fluttering returned, faster this time but their hands were joined again, being bound together. And now they were to say the words.

 _Don’t say the words; if you don’t say them he can’t marry you_ argued the scared voice in her head.

Yet they bubbled off her tongue obediently, as though she had recited them every day like Sansa had in preparation for her own wedding. They weren’t even Arya’s words, they were the words of the septons and it could be argued they didn’t even belong in a godswood. But she said them all anyway, perfectly and evenly and not betraying her thoughts.

 _And I am his, and he is mine_ she thought. Just like that, a string of words in the darkness and it was done.

She was starting to think the wildlings had the right of it all along.

His hand was at the small of her back and he held her close, his kiss polite and restrained but she found herself leaning after him when he pulled away. Just slightly, just enough to notice herself and blush for it, to wonder if anyone had noticed.

Gendry had. “My lady,” he murmured against her lips in amusement, apology, a statement of fact or something else. She didn’t know.

This time when she faced the crowd she saw their faces. Mother and father- mother was crying, father looked sad but was trying to look happy and Sansa was happy but weeping so much she looked sad. Bran, Jojen, Meera and Rickon were smiling at her and she realized abruptly she was the first of them to be married and not truly a child anymore.

Robb had his arm around Dacey, resting his hand on her middle, neatly contained by the gown they’d let out to hide her growing belly. The two of them looked happy enough to make up for the rest of their family’s conflicting emotions. There was Theon, already drunk judging by the glassy look in his eyes and the color in his cheeks. At least he would enjoy her wedding night even if she would not.

And Jon, her favorite brother. All the way at the wall, cold now even in the summer, bitter and unforgiving with no comforts of home or family to be shared even for a special occasion.

Only there had been six sets of eyes in the wood, she realized. Not five. Ghost’s red eyes had been there too, and if Ghost was here then Jon was here, and the thought froze her in her tracks. _Jon had to be here._

She pulled her arm out of Gendry’s and stepped closer to the crowd as if in a dream, searching the strangers. But she couldn’t believe he was there, not truly, until he pushed his way through the people and scooped her off her feet like he had when she was small, her face buried in the black fur of his collar. She was crying, sobbing really, and didn’t care who saw or who thought her a soft weepy woman. She had felt like crying all day but couldn’t until Jon Snow had grabbed her tight, his eyes brimful with sympathy. Then it was if a dam had burst and she was releasing all the fears and frustrations of the last few days- months- that she had been bottling up since she had been betrothed to this man that she barely knew.

No matter how nice his kisses happened to be.

“I didn’t make it soon enough,” Jon said, his grey eyes troubled. “If you don’t want to do this, Arya, tell me and I’ll take him for the Night’s Watch, I swear it.”

“Oh Jon,” she sobbed, smiling through her tears which only made her cry all the harder, his beard scratching her cheek. “I’d have married him a fortnight ago if it meant seeing you sooner.”

Gendry had not interfered in their reunion, politely and wisely. She barely remembered he was there at all until Jon had put her on her feet to grasp the arm of his good-brother in introduction, a solemn warning hidden in the tight clasp. They were fairly well matched in size, but it was always so hard to tell with Jon wrapped in all those furs. Needless to say her brother looked like he’d win the fight on willpower alone if his grimace was any indication. Arya took both their arms and stood between them for the walk back to the hall, just in case.

The wedding was much smaller than Sansa’s had been. Mostly it was people from Cerwyn and a few of the nearest holdfasts, a few guests from the Vale that Arya didn’t know. She’d had fewer lord and lady friends to invite than Sansa, and he’d had no family so it was a relief that there hadn’t been a need for Arya to convince anyone that she wanted a small celebration. Still, though, the feasting would last long into the night regardless, and fewer guests meant more ale for the feast.

Arya and Gendry were seated first, at the high table on the dais, the subject of many good natured japes along the way. Arya sat Jon on her other side and dared anyone to tell her she couldn’t.

It was Gendry who held out her chair for her. A servant came and took the bride’s cloak off for safekeeping, and concealed under the hangings on the table Arya had kicked off her slippers, settling into her seat gladly and wiggling her toes until the feeling came back.

It seemed to take ages for even the small assembly to be seated, working out amongst themselves where they fit into the rankings of the tables and making sure they were seated with friends. Once the feast began there was little time for conversation with Jon between the parade of well -wishers and the courses, but it comforted her more than she could say that he had been there at all.

Gendry was impeccably polite to every single guest he met even when Arya could only fake an interest. She found her appetite little better than it had been earlier. On her empty stomach the wine would have had her well and truly drunk if she hadn’t ordered it watered. Forgetting her wedding night would make her no less married in the morning.

There were toasts made, bawdy songs sung and platters passed through their hall. Arya had been counting the sliced lemons on the duck in front of her for what felt like hours. She was almost anxious for the bedding to end the monotony, but then the dancing had started and that was a moment’s recompense. Sansa had nearly upset the table in her haste to dance to “Oh, Lay My Sweet Lass Down in The Grass”.

Out on the floor Robb was holding Dacey close, and wonderful, fierce Dacey was blushing at whatever he was saying to her. Even Bran had half coerced Meera into a dance, though he was mostly just pulling at her arms while she laughed. Arya risked a glance at Gendry and wondered if Dacey and Meera could be happy in love if there was hope for her yet.

“Would you care to dance?” he asked, noticing her watching the dancers.

“I don’t really dance,” she admitted.

He shrugged. “Neither do I. Still. Would you?”

Jon nudged her in the arm with a smirk and she glared at him, but the two sets of pleading male eyes had her caving. “Fine. But only one, and don’t expect me to do this again.”

It was only by the grace of everyone being already too far in their cups to notice that she agreed. Unfortunately “The Bear and the Maiden Fair” ended by the time they reached the open place beyond the tables, and the song the musicians started was vaguely familiar but Arya didn’t know the rhythm.

Timing didn’t matter this late in the evening though, and together they fumbled through the first few steps until Theon and Sansa’s maid went cavorting by.

Theon was far too drunk to be dancing, but the maid laughed and sang along to the song louder when he buried his face in her cleavage. Still, her feet seemed to know the song, and they imitated her, poorly. She was singing something about grass now and Arya rolled her eyes.

“Are all these songs about grass? How boring.”

“I thought it was about trees.”

“That’s still very boring.” she said, tugging her skirt out of the way before he stood on it and tripped her.

“I could sing you “The Dornishman’s Wife.”

“I’d think “Iron Lances” more fitting.”

“And me without my armor.” He joked.

“And me without my lance.” she added with a smile that surprised Gendry enough that he had trod on her toes.

The music began to change again, though Sansa’s maid and Theon kept on singing their Riverlands song. Arya turned back to the table to see if Jon might like to dance and she saw him disappearing from the hall followed by her father, and she had taken a handful of steps to follow before she realized why they had left.

The stomping of boots and the sound of tankards pounding on the tables found its own rhythm now, overpowering the song. “The bedding!” shouted someone nearby, probably an Umber unless she missed her guess. The rest of the crowd picked up the chant in an instant, wine and ale sloshing out of the cups of those still able to hold them.

Arya backed up against Gendry as the mob descended upon them, and their fingertips brushed before they were pulled apart.

“It’s all right,” he soothed in a whisper. “It’ll be over in a moment.”

Hands pushed both of them through the hall, plucking off her slippers and a stocking while a tow-headed Glover whose name escaped her bore her into the hands of the waiting group of men. Not all those hands were gentle, but they were at least cautious when they began to strip her. Ned might have left the hall for this part of the evening, but he still had eyes everywhere and no one wanted to answer to Eddard Stark for any incidents. Especially when it would be so easy for a man to suddenly find himself at the Wall this far north.

Arya heard a lot of feminine giggling from the crowd in the direction of Gendry, and she heard him laugh in surprise and alarm a time or two on the way to their bedchamber but he had been right, it was over quickly.

She’d been left her in her shift with only a few pinches and pats. The Starks must have had the most loyal men in the realm, because by usual bedding standards they had been extremely polite. Arya almost asked if they had stopped and folded her gown for her after they took it off.  They dropped her onto the featherbed and it amused her to see their bearded faces blushing like they were the maids as they wished her well in her marriage and departed, her band of merrymakers leaving the room like the Others were after them.

Gendry had kept his smallclothes and that was no small feat- he’d had more hands to contend with than she had. Though, she realized, that might have been more for her benefit than his. When the last of the giggling ladies had ferried in her bridegroom and locked the door behind them as they left the silence settled over the two of them, heavy and overwhelming.

There was a low burning fire and a table with wine set out and even a tray of confections for the bride and groom to share. Other than that there was little in the way of diversions. The bed was meant to be the evening’s entertainment.

Arya found that wherever she looked her eyes seemed to wander back to Gendry. He noticed her gaze and was still a bit red-faced but he seemed a bit smug, really, rather than shy when he noticed her looking at the thatch of visible hair below his navel. A warmth crept into her when she dared look lower.

“May I sit?” he asked, gesturing to the side of the bed opposite where she had slid under the covers.

“It’s your bridal bed as much as it is mine,” she granted. His words were polite but his eyes were not. They roamed over her hungrily, as hers had done him, and she felt her nipples tighten. She crossed her arms over her chest and wiggled deeper into the blankets and Gendry followed her beneath them, their toes brushing.

“You’ve still got a stocking on.” he pointed out.

Arya felt wool brushing her calf. “And you kept your socks. Nice of them to preserve our modesty.” Neither of them made any move to further disrobe, and Gendry leaned back against the pillows next to her, the warmth of his bare skin chasing the chill from the sheets. “You never asked me, you know.”

“Asked you what?”

“If I’d like to marry you,” she said indignantly.

“It all happened so quickly. I meant to ask your father for permission to court you properly but he seemed to think you would run away before I could convince you to stay.” He explained, lips quirked in amusement.

She would have. She _should_ have.

“Well you’re still supposed to ask, I think.”

“Very well. Will you consent to wed me, Arya?”

Arya rolled her eyes. “It’s too late now. And I haven’t decided. It depends, how would you have courted me? With your wreath and pledging to protect my honor? If that was your plan I regret Sansa was already wed.”

“No. I had a strategy all worked out in my head.” He explained.

“It must have been a fine strategy if you thought of it yourself.” she replied sarcastically but Gendry must have been immune to her barbs by now.

“I don’t know. You’ll have to tell me if it would have worked. You didn’t let me get to all of it.” he told her softly, propped up on his elbow to look down at her.

“I was going to practice with you and your brothers in the mornings, that way they could chaperone and I could see just how good you were with a sword; in case I needed to keep a few extra men around for when you got tired of my pestering.” he told her, their heads nearly touching on the pillow as they whispered conspiratorially. His gaze was like butter on hot bread.

“Well you did that,” she admitted. It hadn’t _seemed_ like a pathway to seduction, but nevertheless that part of his plan had been accomplished.

“And then one morning I was planning to wait until your brothers had all gone off to their duties- you have altogether too many brothers for one man to contend with, by the way- and then I was going to take Steel out for a little exercise. I was going to see if you might like to sit him, ride around the paddock a bit with me.” His breath was warm on her cheek and smelled of the mint served at the end of the feast and the Dornish red that she’d barely tasted.

Arya had never ridden a true destrier before. A great warhorse like Steel would be a change from her own sleek Northern mounts and would have likely convinced her to share his company for a few moments. “That might have worked.” she admitted.

“Then when all the lords of Winterfell were busy and I was practicing at the quintain I’d thought to ask if my lady would like to have a try.”

“I could never carry the lance.” She countered. Arya was strong but not that strong, and she didn’t like the idea of hitting the target off center and getting smacked in the back either, and it was a certainty she’d miss the mark on her very first pass.

“Oh, we’d ride double,” he offered. “And I’d give you my helm and let you wear my light mail, so your father wouldn’t be quite so angry if he were to find out I was making a knight of you.”

Their hands had met under the covers and he was stroking hers lightly, distractingly while they talked.

Arya was imagining what it would be like to sit in the saddle with him pressed up close behind her. Somehow she didn’t think a _helm_ would placate her father on that regard.

The distance between them had closed while they talked, and his hand had moved from the safety of her arm to the place on her back where it had been during the ceremony and during the kiss they didn’t speak of. Now she knew exactly how it would feel without a dress in the way.  She couldn’t decide for certain if the thrill it left was pleasant or not, like a tickle. He moved his hand in a slow, deliberate circle while she thought about it.

“Assuming I survived the joust and you survived my father and all of my brothers what would your next step have been?” she asked hesitantly.

“I was going to find you one night and be enough of a fool to try and kiss you. In a nice dark corner somewhere where we could be alone. “

“Well we did that.” she managed to get out as his hand slid lower and he held her by the hips.

She was trying to study the faint freckles on his nose instead of thinking about him kissing her again, but somehow it seemed she always ended up kissing him when she tried not to. He didn’t seem to mind this time. His stubble was rough but he was gentle, his lips parting underneath hers to let her taste him. There was a momentary bumping of teeth and noses and then he tangled his hand in her hair and shifted her just a bit and they found perfection, her breath hitching.

Arya had almost forgotten that this was their bedding. Gendry rolled on top of her in a smooth motion, and she could feel his cock pressing into her middle, hard and thick. She was a maid and _supposed_ to be frightened, but she only gasped his name and dragged her hands over the firm muscles of his back, arching up into him while he pulled apart the laces at the front of her shift so he could press kisses over the peaks of her breasts.

Every pass of his tongue left her speechless, and it was only when the edge of his teeth grazed her nipple that she found her voice again, though it wasn’t a word that escaped her lips but a moan.

“This was all I could think about on the way to the Vale,” he confessed, tracing the curve at the underside of her breasts with his thumb. “It’s a miracle I wasn’t set upon by bandits.”

She’d had a moment to gather herself, and her own thoughts had descended a road positively beset with bandits. “What would you have done next that night we kissed? If that servant hadn’t passed by?”

His lips stilled on her neck, where they had drifted while she spoke.

Gendry took a moment to consider, nuzzling at her ear. “I might have been stupid enough to see if I could touch you under your gown,” he purred with his hand on her knee “and found out if you were wet for me.”

It was a completely vulgar thing to say, even to your wife in your wedding bed. Arya had never minded a little vulgarity and found that her thighs parted for him in invitation, anxious to see what _that_ would feel like.

In answer Gendry’s fingers hooked under the top of her forgotten stocking and slid it down her leg, the grazing of his hand raising goose bumps. When he brushed the arch of her foot she jerked, and he smiled at her mischievously. “I didn’t know you were ticklish,” he teased, running his big hand back up her leg, over her hip and finding his way to low on her belly.

“Are you ticklish here?”

Arya’s hips shifted unconsciously, helpfully nudging his hand towards where she wanted it. “No,”

How could Gendry be so unhurried and playful while she was lying here impatiently, like she’d been waiting for him half her life? She certainly hadn’t planned on being quite so biddable but she hadn’t planned on this feeling good, either. He had though, hadn’t he? That’s what this whole plan of his had been about. Well he might have told _her_.

Gendry gathered up the hem of her shift until it was above the edge of the blanket. She decided he had done it purely to see if he could find any ticklish spots on the places his fingers skimmed over on her belly and ribs. Arya didn’t laugh, but she did elbow him sharply (mostly on accident).

The thin material of her shift nearly tore when she pulled it over her head and tossed it aside where it could provide no more distraction, not caring that she had fled the modesty preserving cover of the blanket. “Stop teasing me.” she demanded, hooking her legs behind him and pulling their bodies closer.

There now. His expression suddenly looked a sight more serious, and experimentally she pressed herself against his thigh. Yes, this was better.

This time when his hand touched her making her laugh seemed the last thing on his mind. Those fingers were intent on another task, and when he parted her folds and found his target she knocked her head into the bedpost and swore, his lips pressing over hers; eager to soothe away her impatience. But when he rubbed his fingers over her like that and his teeth nipped at her lips she couldn’t be patient. She was greedy and insistent underneath him.

“Gods, you’re beautiful,” he breathed in awe, his voice strained. “I can’t believe you wed me.”

Arya peeked at him, those perfect eyes of his intent on her own under a fringe of no longer tidied black hair. His arms were marked with a few shiny burn scars and thin white lines from blades that found their way through his armor, the skin tight over the bunched muscles beneath. She saw a slight tremor from supporting his weight over her with one arm while the other- fuck, the other was busy trying to make her insane.

“I had… reasons.” she gasped, her hands flying to grab his shoulders when he eased a finger inside of her.

Reason. Whatever it had been was gone now. She could feel how slick she was under his touch, and didn’t need to feel anything at all to know how desperate and needy she’d become. It was just as well his hands had never made it under her gown that night. She’d never have let him out of her sight to go to the Eyrie if they’d done this then.

They’d started writhing against one another, the fabric of his smallclothes still chafing against her bare skin. How had they forgotten about those?

He looked focused on what he was doing, his mouth in a grim line and his jaw clenched with restraint. Arya watched in amusement as all that concentration fled under her hand when she had shoved it into his smallclothes and closed around his cock, the skin a silken contrast to just how hard he was. He faltered and stilled for a moment, and then thrusted against her fingers indecisively.

“You’re supposed to let me make you peak first,” he gritted. “That was my plan.”

And she’d once thought him a poor strategist.

“I’m not stopping you.”

They kicked back the blankets and pulled off his smallclothes together, both of them completely heedless of their own nudity when given the opportunity to look at the other. He was bigger than she’d expected. Everywhere. She still didn’t feel any trepidation staring at his cock, but she’d always been too bold for her own good and according to the advice she’d been given they were doing this all wrong. Arya hadn’t thought about Winterfell once.

His mouth was wet on her thigh, the knob of her hipbone. Her cunt.

Going about it the wrong way felt very nice. Better than nice when his tongue flicked over her, seeking and finding and driving her into that first peak he’d insisted upon, a wave of blind ecstasy that she felt crest even as he was pulling his mouth away against her protests.

“Wait for me,” he whispered, silencing her complaints with a kiss.

Their hands met as they fumbled with getting him inside of her, an awkward interlude with them trying to accomplish it without letting go of one another and him afraid of hurting her.

“It’s fine,” she murmured. “It feels good.”

Gendry looked more pained than she did; truthfully, all gritted teeth and closed eyes when he slid into her. It was a tight, stretching fit. Not pain but a sharp sensation, the feeling of pleasure laid bare. His first true thrust made her eyes roll back and her legs tighten around him, their skin damp where it met. She urged him deeper, lifting her hips to meet him and he filled her completely.

Their joining was hurried now. It was funny, all those hours she’d spent wishing him away from her and now she couldn’t get him close enough no matter how tightly she held onto him. He- this- was too much and not enough at once. Everything felt new and wonderful and when she looked up into his eyes she wondered if she might love him eventually. The returning tenderness when he looked at her through a haze of pleasure seemed to say that there was already something between them that was a lot like love.

He seemed to have lost a lot of his impressive control, and when he slipped between their joined bodies his touch was clumsier than before, hasty and imprecise and shattering. He strained against her with a groan, his movements rougher and frenzied now. Impossibly this was even better. She cried out in surprise at the building desperation and the relief when his lips sought hers in a searing kiss and the pleasure took both of them at the same moment.

He pulsed thickly within her and his damp forehead fell against her neck, his breathing ragged.

They stayed like that a moment before either of them had even thought about moving. It only stung when it was over and he rolled off of her. With a blush and a look at the sheets Arya realized that they had indeed done it correctly, and she‘d made to change the bedding but he’d slung an arm around her and pulled her over to his side of the bed.

“Leave it for the morning.”

She was more embarrassed now than she had been during, and even in his arms she’d felt tense. “We’ve ruined your hair,” he informed her, tugging softly on the end of a loosened coil. This time the pleasure from his fingers was unexpected, as he eased down to her scalp and gently massaged her sore head. One by one he pulled the pins out and put them on the bed next to her, his gentleness making her heart ache.

Arya was drowsing against his chest now, exhausted and sated.

“Gendry?”

His thumb slid over her bottom lip and she pressed a lazy kiss against his palm. “Yes?”

She looked to the foot of the bed, and at the grey wool he still wore. 

“We forgot about your socks.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was crazy long. Still thinking there will be a wrap up chapter and maybe an epilogue on the way. This chapter is essentially the oneshot that spawned the other chapters, so I hope it was worth the read! Fun fact: writing the Jon part made me cry. I really just want Jon and Arya to get to hug again someday.


	7. Winter's End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pure domestic fluff, some Ned POV and the epilogue.

Ned woke to the sound of a horse in the yard, the dawn light pouring through around the shutters and Catelyn still sleeping at his side. His head throbbed a bit when he sat up too quickly, and he remembered suddenly the wine he and Jon had shared last night after the feast, when they’d both been determined not to think on the fact that it was Arya’s wedding night.

He was far too old for this, he decided. He’d forgo wine the next time one of his brood got married.

When he opened the window the harsh light left him blinking and swearing, and it took a moment before he could make them out on that silver horse down below. Winterfell would sleep late today, but not the newlyweds.

Gendry was leaning forward to whisper in her ear, his hands around her waist, pulling her possessively close against him in the saddle. _Husband. He’s her husband now,_ Ned reminded himself as he instinctively reached for his sword belt.

Sansa had fallen in love with Cley Cerwyn quietly, sweetly and beneath the dripping beeswax candles of the Great Hall between breathless dances at her fourteenth nameday feast. Ned had watched that happen under his nose, and never once fretted for the two of them. They couldn’t have been any more proper about their courting if he’d sent the septa to watch over them, and when they’d wed a few years later it had been just as chaste and romantic as any story.

Robb and Dacey had a rougher time of it, she older than him by several years and meant to be heir of Bear Isle besides. Mormonts didn’t love easy, but her and Robb loved earnestly and loved loyal and Dacey had borne up under the burden of loving someone so inconvenient. Catelyn had wept over them more than once but Ned had seen himself in the eyes of his son, and he hadn’t doubted that Robb and Dacey would find their way through the muddle.

Bran and Meera had fallen in love as children among the leaves and mud and innocence. The two of them had been like a couple long wedded before Bran had ever dared steal a kiss from his little love, and Ned had known of that, too, and he and Howland Reed had shared a toast and celebrated the fortune of their families and the inevitable joining of their houses.

Though he may have been a Snow by name Jon had loved his honor and done his duty and that made him as much of a Stark as any of Ned’s trueborn children. Ned wasn’t sure of all that had transpired in between Jon leaving as a boy and coming back as a man of the Night’s Watch but he saw the look of a man who had known love and lost it bitterly in Jon’s eyes sometimes, and though it was beyond his reach to fix Ned did worry about that when the Northern winds blew cold.

Rickon fell in love half a hundred times in a day. He liked merry girls, serious ones, blushing maidens and bold women. Blondes and brunettes and especially that redheaded bastard of Theon’s that no one was supposed to know about. Rickon’s zeal and the fabled wolf blood had put a few more grey threads through Ned’s beard and a line or two on his face but Rickon was wild and smiling and hard to reprimand for enjoying himself. And maybe he had too much passion but he didn’t break hearts, and for that Ned was grateful.

 It was Arya who had taken him by surprise, though he liked to think he understood her better than he did his other children. She’d fallen in love stubbornly and without ever intending to, and Ned had seen it burn bright in her eyes that night he’d found her in the middle of that shamble of tents at White Harbor, staring at Ser Gendry Waters of the Vale with such poorly concealed lust that he’d wanted to laugh, cry, send her to her bedchamber and challenge Ser Waters to a duel all at once. He’d seen the first stirrings of love alongside the resentment when she’d taken the lad’s wreath at the tourney, the fear of leaving and the fear of staying warring in her.

Arya never did anything easily or properly, but when Gendry had asked for her hand Ned knew she always did it _well_.

“Who’s the knight come this early?” yawned Cat, padding up next to him on bare feet to glance out at the yard, her long auburn hair coming out of its braid.

“Our daughter,” Ned informed her.

Cat shot back to the window, her mouth open in disbelief. “Ned… _are they riding the quintain_?!”

“Do you think they’ll do tourneys together? Once Arya’s had a bit of practice?” Ned teased his wife.

Catelyn looked unamused. “I thought you said that he’d make our daughter a good husband. A _safe_ husband.”

“I did,” Ned agreed. “And he’s made her wear a helm, look. That’s very safe.”

“That’s not what I had in mind, Eddard.”

~

“You’re holding it wrong,” Gendry told her.

“How many ways can there possibly be to hold a lance?” she retorted.

“I don’t know, but that’s not one of them. Here. Better on the wrist.” he said, sliding his hand behind the vamplate with hers and giving the lance a quarter turn. The balance did feel better.

“Are you ready?” he asks, and she nods. She’d forgotten that they both wore helms, and their armor bangs together with a sound that makes her feel like a bird stuck in a bell tower. But then Gendry jostles Steel to a canter and she can’t think about the ringing in her ears anymore.

There’s much more to the joust than she had imagined, especially with both of them trying to fit onto the saddle. Sitting in Gendry’s lap is a different sort of distraction all together after the night before. And that morning. And probably again later, she decides.

He shifted to a standing position in the stirrups just before the lance hit the shield on the quintain, absorbing the shock from the blow. She had no stirrups so she’s left clinging to the cantle and trying not to drop the lance on their mount’s head, though Gendry has most of the unwieldy weight braced against his side. Quickly, he grabbed her around the middle and bowed over her while she shrieked with laughter, and the counterweight thumped into the back of Gendry’s bull’s head helm harmlessly.

“That was entirely your fault,” she wheezed as Steel came to a stop at the end of the lane. “You were the one guiding the horse.”

Gendry pulled off his helm with a flourish, and her hands came up under her chin to get the heavy armor that they’d ‘borrowed’ off her own head. It’s rather a lot like wearing a cauldron. Maybe Gendry could make Arya her own helm. He always looked so excited when he talked about blacksmithing. Yes, he’d probably like it if she asked him to make something for her.

“He’s slow from all those apples you were feeding him.” Gendry teased, tossing the horse’s reins to Hot Pie, who had fallen asleep leaning against the fence. They’d found the squire asleep face down in the hay mow with one of the kitchen girls, but he’d loyally insisted on performing his duties in spite of the early hour and what must have been a spectacular hangover.

“I think you’re too heavy.” Arya mused as Gendry slid off the saddle. “Maybe Steel and I would have better luck if we went on without you.”

Gendry tugged her out of the saddle and into his arms in a smooth motion, no skirts to hinder her today. “No you don’t, m’lady.” his lips are hot on her neck, the tone of his voice rich with promise. “I’m not done with you yet and you’d be taking more than my horse with you if you left me now.”

“Oh? Like your heart?” she sighed dramatically, putting on her best effort at a doe-eyed swoon, though she knows even her imitations of ladies are rather poor.

“Perhaps,” he agreed.

But she knows.

She'd never tell him, but she'd stopped wishing for him to leave quite some time ago.

~

There is a decided dearth of ladies at Winterfell.

Robb and Dacey’s son Rodrik was born only a moon after Arya and Gendry’s wedding and was as fat cheeked and jolly as any little cub from Bear Isle ought to be. And though he lives at Castle Cerwyn, Sansa’s son Willem was born just before his cousin’s first nameday, another proud little lordling with Stark blood in his veins though he has the Tully look like his mother and Cley’s stubborn chin.

“And you’re next,” Arya warned Meera, struggling to reach the hem of her friend’s maiden’s cloak. As Meera had once done for her, though Meera had done it much more gracefully.

Bending is increasingly difficult.

This time Arya is the one whose gown needs let out for the wedding. She’s taken to wearing gowns again, much to her mother’s delight and Gendry’s distaste. It is simple necessity at this point- no tunic fit around her belly. And she informs Gendry that her arse looks exactly the same under a gown as it does under breeches. He still sulks that he doesn’t care about the under, it’s the _through_ that he misses.

(“Why do you think I’m always following you around?” he asks her sadly one morning, lamenting her change in wardrobe.)

 

One could easily say that Arya, Dacey and Meera make terrible ladies. None of them would disagree, but Winterfell suits all of them and the castle blossoms with new life regardless of the poor turn that has taken the heirloom Tully embroideries that Catelyn, may the Mother bless her, had tried to pass down through the household.

Eventually the needlework is packed and sent to Cerwyn for Sansa, and all the Stark women are gladdened immensely

Arya and Gendry’s daughter is born amidst the sort of swearing that ought not to be said where a babe can hear it. It is customary for the entire household to wish a son on the new parents, but throughout her pregnancy the wishes for a male heir are rather faint and unconvincing. Which is just as well, because Arya had to grit her teeth through every insinuation that a son would be better than a daughter and her mood when she was with child was tempestuous on the best of days.

No one is happier that the babe is a girl than Catelyn, who beamed at her granddaughter with the sort of scheming look on her face that might be better suited to King’s Landing.

“Mother, she probably won’t turn out to be any more of a lady than I did.” Arya pointed out. “She’ll probably be a knight like Brienne of Tarth. Gendry rode against her once, did you know? She trounced him.” Arya rushed on. “Or maybe she’ll be an outlaw like Wenda the White Fawn, or a Warrior Queen like Nymeria.”

“She might take after my side of the family.” offered Gendry helpfully. “My mother was a tavern wench, but I imagine she wore gowns rather than breeches. That’s halfway to a proper lady already.”

Ned had been right when he’d once told Arya that she and Ser Waters were well-suited. She was glad she had made even a poor attempt at listening to him that day as Gendry’s input made teasing her mother all the more fun.

The look on Catelyn’s face was pure exasperation, and when she leaves the room the pair of them- now a trio - shared a laugh at her expense. They all know Catelyn is secretly quite fond of Gendry in spite of his seemingly innocent goading, but she isn’t quite ready to give up her patient disapproval in the hopes that someday it might sink in to one of them.

 “You know, she might actually like being a lady.” Gendry mused, stroking the babe’s soft cheek with his finger.

“I know. I suppose one of us must eventually turn out _properly_.”

“She’s turned out well already.” Gendry argued.

“Of course she did,” Arya said, rolling her eyes. “I made her myself. After months of practice and even more tireless work after the fun was over.”

“I seem to recall being there for parts of it.” Gendry said wryly.

“Were you?” replied Arya innocently. “I guess that explains why she looks like you.”

“Do you really think she favors me?” he asked his wife seriously, peering down at their child with intense scrutiny. When he does, their foreheads scrunch identically as the babe frets with her swaddling clothes. Everyone has said it since the birth, but he still can’t see himself on that tiny little face.

“She’s the very mirror of you. Without the beard.”

“I don’t know Arya; I think she might have your eyes. They look grey to me.”

Arya held the baby up into the light and appraised her carefully. “I think they’re supposed to look like that when they’re little. Sort of blue. And… squinty.”

“I’m told mine are a true Baratheon blue.” Gendry suggested.

Arya made a face. “Well she wasn’t born a Baratheon, she needn’t have their eyes.”

“No,” he agreed readily. “She’s a… something. Of somewhere.”

They can agree on neither the family name that their daughter will take as the product of a union between a bastard and a trueborn lady or what they’ll call their own holdfast once the construction has finished. Their charges and colors are another argument entirely.

“No bulls, Gendry.” Arya reminded him. “That opens the door for far too many japes about cattle for my liking. I’d much rather be a bitch than a cow.”

“A hammer for me, then. And a direwolf for my lady.”

“All right. But I still think that’s a silly thing to have for a sigil. And you’ll have to find someone else to sew your banners, _ser_.”

~

Arya dropped the pile of fabric onto the floor with a shriek.

“Gendry, she’s going to make off with your needle. Come here, Lya.”

Arya scooped their daughter off the floor with a sigh, rescuing the the scrap and its dangling thread before her daughter made off with it permanently.

“And they called _me_ Underfoot.” Arya muttered, setting her child down next to Nymeria for the direwolf to watch for a moment. Lya gleefully grabbed a chubby handful of the wolf’s ruff and Nymeria looked up at Arya with sorrowful eyes. “Sorry Nymeria. It’s only for a moment.” she promised her wolf as the large canine huffed and gave Lya’s cheek a lick. Nymeria was a font of inexhaustible patience where children were concerned, thankfully. They required a lot of patience, and Arya was in no hurry to explain any missing members of her family.

With their daughter momentarily distracted Arya returned her attention to Gendry, who was painstakingly attempting to sew their charges onto a banner. He’d been at it for hours, the work clumsy under his large and unpracticed hands.

“I’m nearly finished.” he announced proudly.

“Let me have a look,” Arya offered. She almost felt bad for refusing to sew the stupid thing herself, but she expected him to let her mother do it, not try _his_ hand at it. He had insisted that he could mend a tear in his breeches and patch mail as well, and how different could it be?

Very, as it turned out. When she went to pick up the banner it… well, it didn’t move.

“Gendry?”

He groaned.

“You’ve sewn it to your breeches.”

“It seems I have.”

“Well, at least your stitches are nice and even.” she told him, as she knelt next to him and clipped the offending threads to free him. “Septa Mordane would have praised your work.”

“I think I’m more suited to the lance than the needle.” Gendry flopped back into his seat, rubbing the ache out of the back of his neck. She’d often had a similar thought, sitting in this very room with her needlework.

“It’s fine. We’ll tie these loose ends off and we’ll only have to sew up a few places.” Arya soothed, holding the banner up to make her determination. They’d settled on a black hammer on a field of light blue for one half, and a white direwolf on grey for the opposing. A golden bar sinister split the fields.

“That’s the ugliest banner I’ve ever seen,” Gendry announced. “Do you think it’s too late to use Stark heraldry? I don’t want to ride under this.”

She shushed him with a kiss. “I think it’s lovely. We’ll put it in the Great Hall at Winter’s End, where our entire host can see it. In a place of pride, right over the tables.”

“We’ll be shunned if that’s what we welcome our guests with.”

Lya had crawled across the flagstone and was attempting to pull herself upright on Arya’s breeches so she could climb into Gendry’s lap, likely so she could tug at the brightly colored blazons that had been kept out of her reach so carefully all afternoon.

Arya plucked her daughter up and together they both landed in Gendry’s lap, the standard place to find the two of them on evenings like this. She held firmly onto the back of Lya’s gown with one hand to keep her from falling while she tried to chew the corner of their house’s sigil, with no regard to her personal safety or self-preservation at the moment. Lya rarely had any regard at all for those sorts of matters, and Arya could only desperately hope that it was a temporary quirk. Or that Gendry could make some very small armor, maybe.

Arya leaned back against Gendry’s chest with a contented sigh, and he kissed her forehead with easy familiarity. It put her in a generous mood, and she took one last look at their heraldry as it was eaten by their feral wolf child.  “You can tell them it’s my work if it puts your mind at ease.”

Gendry rescued the slobbery silk with a grimace, and Lya let up a pathetic whimper that made Nymeria stir from her place by the hearth and come to see what the matter was.

“I think I might do that, Arya.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well... that's all I got. Hope it was worth the read. Pretty sure this is the longest thing I've ever actually finished. 
> 
> I love all of you forever for your kind words!


End file.
